English: The Difference Between Pluperfect and Present Perfect Tenses (Example)

[KyleGoetz]

I was reading a passage in the latest edition of The Alcalde, the magazine for alumni of The University of Texas. I came across a place where the author made a typo and used "has" instead of "had" ("d" and "s" are right next to each other on the keyboard). This is a perfect example of why the two are different.

I used to teach English to people in Japan at a small private program (not Aeon and that sort of thing). I consider myself to have been a very good teacher because I taught bilingually and my students made a lot of progress. I remember when I taught this, and how I drew time diagrams to explain the difference.

Instead of doing that here, I'm just going to explain why the "had"/"has" difference is important to the meaning of a sentence by using this typo as a teaching moment.

Original passage (heavily edited for simplification):

Dana Bible recruited few out-of-state players. He implemented a new strategy for recruiting Texas players. Ten years after inheriting a bad program, Bible has shaped the Texas football program into a good one.

Note that it says "Ten years after X, he has done Y." This makes it sound like Y occurred now, and X occurred ten years ago. Here, you're making a statement about the time relationship between now, Y, and X.

Now, if we change "has" to "had":

Dana Bible recruited few out-of-state players. He implemented a new strategy for recruiting Texas players. Ten years after inheriting a bad program, Bible had shaped the Texas football program into a good one.

Now, it says "Ten years after X, he had done Y." By using "had," you make no reference to when it is now. You are only making reference to the relationship between when X occurred and when he did Y.

That is a good example of why this matters.

Now, I used "pluperfect" and "present perfect" in my thread title. This is because using "had" with the past participle of a verb (e.g., "had read") is called the "pluperfect" tense.** Using "have"/"has" with the past participle of a verb (e.g., "has read") is called the "present perfect" tense.



** The pluperfect tense is also called the "past perfect" tense.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I was reading a passage in the latest edition of The Alcalde, the magazine for alumni of The University of Texas. I came across a place where the author made a typo and used "has" instead of "had" ("d" and "s" are right next to each other on the keyboard). This is a perfect example of why the two are different.

God, I remember when learning Latin being utterly baffled with perfect tenses, and we horrified the teacher when we pointed out we had no idea what 'pluperfect' was in english either. Interesting thread Kyle.