English Language & Usage Asked by deepcosmos on August 27, 2021
I’d appreciate if anyone could explain to me the usage of past perfect in the following sentence, since the past perfect, I assume, is unusually referring to ‘later past‘.
"The frustrated interrogator was not going to give up easily. “Are you both still working in the company?” Barbara, appearing not the least disturbed by the woman’s incontinent insistence, scooped the last cherry out of her dish, smiled, looked directly at her, and said in the identical tone of voice, “We’ve separated, but the company is unaffected.” That shut her up. Barbara had shown her big winner’s badge by using “The Broken Record” technique, the most effective way to curtail an unwelcome cross-examination."
(https://howtotalktoanyone.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-respond-when-you-dont-want-to.html)
Think of it in terms of cause and effect. Here the past perfect is expressing the causal relation (by making explicit their relation to each other in time). The cause ususally comes before the effect in time.
More simply, the interrogator quit talking because Barbara showed her 'big winner's badge' (whatever that is). The cause (showing badge/using technique) precedes the effect (going quiet) and thus comes before it in time. The past perfect here is stressing the causality, by putting the first event directly in front of the second, consequential one.
Answered by Analphabeta on August 27, 2021
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP