Fdtxjr

Crossing the line between justified force and brutality

How do scammers retract money, while you can’t?

Tiptoe or tiphoof? Adjusting words to better fit fantasy races

Class Action - which options I have?

How easy is it to start Magic from scratch?

Is `x >> pure y` equivalent to `liftM (const y) x`

Do the temporary hit points from the Battlerager barbarian's Reckless Abandon stack if I make multiple attacks on my turn?

What is the difference between "behavior" and "behaviour"?

How can I get through very long and very dry, but also very useful technical documents when learning a new tool?

Implement the Thanos sorting algorithm

Avoiding estate tax by giving multiple gifts

Purchasing a ticket for someone else in another country?

Why escape if the_content isnt?

I'm in charge of equipment buying but no one's ever happy with what I choose. How to fix this?

Go Pregnant or Go Home

Increase performance creating Mandelbrot set in python

Method to test if a number is a perfect power?

What does "I’d sit this one out, Cap," imply or mean in the context?

Is oxalic acid dihydrate considered a primary acid standard in analytical chemistry?

How do I find the solutions of the following equation?

India just shot down a satellite from the ground. At what altitude range is the resulting debris field?

How do I extract a value from a time formatted value in excel?

Escape a backup date in a file name

Would a virus be able to change eye and hair colour?

Using Past-Perfect interchangeably with the Past Continuous

Past Progressive + BEFORE/AFTER + GerundIs this past perfect tense put because of the previous tense?past perfect necessary herePast perfect in “after” and “before” clausesWhy is the past perfect continuous connected to the present?Past perfect and Past perfect continuousIs past perfect necessary in 'It had been here before we came.'?The only use of past perfect tense is to distinguish which event happened first in the past?The past tense instead of the past perfect tensePast Perfect or Present Perfect for the verb “Think”?past perfect continous for an action that has recently stopped?

5

1

I've seen this sentence in another post here:

1. Tom Cruise was thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.

Would it be fine to use the Past-Perfect as well? If so, which tense is better?

Here are a few options that came to my mind:

2. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.
   or


3. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.


4. Tom Cruise had thought of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.

past-perfect past-perfect-continuous

share|improve this question

edited Mar 17 at 21:43

SunnySideDown

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

add a comment | 

5

1

I've seen this sentence in another post here:

1. Tom Cruise was thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.

Would it be fine to use the Past-Perfect as well? If so, which tense is better?

Here are a few options that came to my mind:

2. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.
   or


3. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.


4. Tom Cruise had thought of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.

past-perfect past-perfect-continuous

share|improve this question

edited Mar 17 at 21:43

SunnySideDown

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

add a comment | 

I've seen this sentence in another post here:

1. Tom Cruise was thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.

Would it be fine to use the Past-Perfect as well? If so, which tense is better?

Here are a few options that came to my mind:

2. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before finding a job in the movies.
   or


3. Tom Cruise had been thinking of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.


4. Tom Cruise had thought of a career in the church before he found a job in the movies.

past-perfect past-perfect-continuous

share|improve this question

edited Mar 17 at 21:43

SunnySideDown

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

share|improve this question

edited Mar 17 at 21:43

SunnySideDown

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

share|improve this question

edited Mar 17 at 21:43

SunnySideDown

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

asked Mar 17 at 21:13

SunnySideDownSunnySideDown

845

2 Answers
2

active

oldest

votes

4

All of these are perfectly acceptable. The forms using "had been thinking" suggest a process of thought which extended over some time, but ended, either when the job was found, or before that. The for with "had thought" suggests a single instance of thought that occurred before the job was found.

But many native speakers will not make these fine distinctions, and may use any of the four forms in the question interchangeably, with no difference of meaning.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

add a comment | 

4

All three of these sentences are grammatical as well. The past perfect tense is no better than the simple past tense in this situation; they're equally good. The word before tells you that the thinking happened, and then the finding happened afterwards.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

add a comment | 

Your Answer

StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "481"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);

else
createEditor();

);

function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);



);

draft saved

draft discarded

Sign up or log in

StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);

Sign up using Google

Sign up using Facebook

Sign up using Email and Password

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fell.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f201024%2fusing-past-perfect-interchangeably-with-the-past-continuous%23new-answer', 'question_page');

);

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

4

All of these are perfectly acceptable. The forms using "had been thinking" suggest a process of thought which extended over some time, but ended, either when the job was found, or before that. The for with "had thought" suggests a single instance of thought that occurred before the job was found.

But many native speakers will not make these fine distinctions, and may use any of the four forms in the question interchangeably, with no difference of meaning.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

add a comment | 

4

All of these are perfectly acceptable. The forms using "had been thinking" suggest a process of thought which extended over some time, but ended, either when the job was found, or before that. The for with "had thought" suggests a single instance of thought that occurred before the job was found.

But many native speakers will not make these fine distinctions, and may use any of the four forms in the question interchangeably, with no difference of meaning.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

add a comment | 

All of these are perfectly acceptable. The forms using "had been thinking" suggest a process of thought which extended over some time, but ended, either when the job was found, or before that. The for with "had thought" suggests a single instance of thought that occurred before the job was found.

But many native speakers will not make these fine distinctions, and may use any of the four forms in the question interchangeably, with no difference of meaning.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

answered Mar 17 at 21:30

David SiegelDavid Siegel

1,423112

4

All three of these sentences are grammatical as well. The past perfect tense is no better than the simple past tense in this situation; they're equally good. The word before tells you that the thinking happened, and then the finding happened afterwards.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

add a comment | 

4

All three of these sentences are grammatical as well. The past perfect tense is no better than the simple past tense in this situation; they're equally good. The word before tells you that the thinking happened, and then the finding happened afterwards.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

add a comment | 

All three of these sentences are grammatical as well. The past perfect tense is no better than the simple past tense in this situation; they're equally good. The word before tells you that the thinking happened, and then the finding happened afterwards.

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714

answered Mar 17 at 21:19

MixolydianMixolydian

4,348714