Mary had been wounded in the arm

Question

Dear all,Please see the following sentences and tell me whether they are correct. If yes, please tell me the difference in their meaning. 1) Mary had been wounded in the arm.2) Mary had wounded herself in the arm.3) Mary had wounded Tom in the arm.4) Mary was wounded in the arm.5) Mary injured her knee playing hockey.6) Mary was injured playing hockey.7) Mary's knee was injured playing hockey.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

cat navy 425
1) Mary had been wounded in the arm.
2) Mary had wounded herself in the arm.
3) Mary had wounded Tom in the arm.
4) Mary was wounded in the arm.
5) Mary injured her knee playing hockey.
6) Mary was injured playing hockey.
7) Mary's knee was injured playing hockey.

All OK.

The differences are mostly obvious from the words you have chosen.

Those differences that you are probably most interested in are those which have to do with verbs.

had wounded occurred before some other event in the past.
was wounded occurred before the present moment.
While had wounded is active, had been wounded is passive. So in sentences with had wounded, the object of the sentence refers to the wounded person, but with had been wounded, it is the subject of the sentence that refers to the wounded person. With reflexive pronouns (herself), both the subject and the object refer to the wounded person.

injured is the active voice.
was injured is the passive voice.
Thus, the meaning of sentences 5) and 7) is the same.
The only difference between those and sentence 6) is that there is no mention of any specific place on Mary's body that was injured in 6), so it conveys less information than 5) and 7).

wounded and injured have the same meaning and are used with about the same frequency, although it seems to me that I hear "injured" in the television news more often than "wounded".

CJ

Mary had been wounded in the arm

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