I'm having problem with Past Perfect / Past Perfect Continuous

Question

I am trying to hone my English Skills. As of right now, I'm struggling with verb tenses. I took this quiz and failed badly http://englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs13.htm.

The answers were,
I'm sorry I left without you last night, but I told you to meet me early because the show started at 8:00. I (had been trying) to get tickets for that play for months, and I didn't want to miss it. By the time I finally left the coffee shop where we were supposed to meet, I (had had) five cups of coffee and I (had been waiting) over an hour. I had to leave because I (had arranged) to meet Kathy in front of the theater.

My answers were,
I'm sorry I left without you last night, but I told you to meet me early because the show started at 8:00. I (had been trying) to get tickets for that play for months, and I didn't want to miss it. By the time I finally left the coffee shop where we were supposed to meet, I (had) five cups of coffee and I (had waited) over an hour. I had to leave because I (had arranged) to meet Kathy in front of the theater.

I wrote "I had five cups of coffee and I had waited over an hour", due to the parallel rule. "Had had" has past participle in it while "had been waiting" has present participle, and they are not parallel to each other! It's so confusing! Can someone please clear up some things for me? Is there an easy dirty tip/trick that I can use next time I get stuck on something similar?

Many thanks in advance!

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

2cool2hearBy the time I finally left the coffee shop where we were supposed to meet, I (had) five cups of coffee and I (had waited) over an hour.

"by the time" shows a time relationship that often goes with the past perfect. I would have said "I had had five cups ..." because it occurs before the act of leaving the shop. The five cups are all drunk by the time of the leaving, so you can't very logically express that as an on-going activity such as "I had been having five cups ...".*

'had waited' is not the worst choice in the world, but waiting continues over time, so I agree with your answer sheet that the continuous would have been better.

Considerations of parallelism do not apply here. Each clause has to express what it has to express, so if you need a different shade of meaning for each clause, you have to say it that way.

CJ

*Here's a tip for future reference. If you are speaking of a series of repeated events like "I had a cup of coffee. Then I had another cup of coffee. Then I had another cup of coffee. ...", and you roll them all up into a number of times by saying "I had three cups of coffee" or "I had five cups of coffee", or "I ate three hamburgers", or "I tasted three slices of pizza", or anything like that, don't use the continuous tense. It's very odd to say things like "I was having three cups of coffee", or "I was eating three hamburgers", or "I was tasting three slices of pizza". However, you can use the continuous if it's just the activity of doing one of these, thus, "I was having a cup of coffee", or "I was eating a hamburger", or "I was tasting a slice of pizza".

CJ

4444mv · Answer

... the meaning of this sentence that I don't understand because.. (defining clause) or the meaning of this sentence, which I don't ....(non-defining clause)
The relative pronoun 'that' cannot be used with non-defining clauses.

I don't know if (without comma)

I'm having problem with Past Perfect / Past Perfect Continuous

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions