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Inchoateknowledge Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

future implication

If I want to say that on the face of it something is valuable, but later it turns out that, actually, it is without value, which sentence applies more:

1 At first, I thought it would be valuable.

2 At first, I had thought it would be valuable.

I read upon it somewhere, but I can not recover the info.

To my mind, the second means that it later turned out we had made the wrong assumption.

The first does not imply the future outcome.

If none of them are correct to mean what I want to say, what would you say?

Thanks
  

Top answer

At first I thought it would be valuable. The verb tense is past perfect in dependent clause and the verb tense is past in independent clause.

— Welkins2139

  • At first I thought it would be valuable.
  • The verb tense is past perfect in dependent clause and the verb tense is past in independent clause.
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4 Answers
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At first I thought it would be valuable.

The verb tense is past perfect in dependent clause and the verb tense is past in independent clause.
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Hi,

Both sentences contain an ellipted dependent (relative) clause and are, IMO, equally acceptable, but apply in different cases.

At first, I (had) thought that it would be valuable.

thanks
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I think your sentence is not correct.
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>To my mind, the second means that it later turned out we had made the wrong assumption.

I think that both are implying this and that both are correct. The crux is more in "at first" and less in the verbs.

However, the 2nd one could only be used in the usual past perfect environments, where you have another action which is preceeded by "had thought."
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