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Gray olive 661 Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

Past Perfect tense doubt

Hi,

I would like to know, why we used Past perfect (i.e. He had never felt so lonely) in below sentence. All I knew about past perfect is, we should use while saying two past situations and first one should be in past perfect like e.g. "I had talked to him before you called me".

"No cards, no presents, and he would be spending the evening pretending not to exist. He gazed miserably into the hedge. He had never felt so lonely"

Shall we use just simple past tense like "He never felt so lonely"?

Thanks,

Balakrishna

  

Top answer

e. He had never felt so lonely) in below the sentence below . g.

— Teechr

  • e.
  • He had never felt so lonely) in below the sentence below .
  • g.
  • "I had talked to him before you called me".
  • "No cards, no presents, and he would be spending the evening pretending not to exist.
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3 Answers
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Hi,

I would like to know, why we the author used the past perfect (i.e. He had never felt so lonely) in below the sentence below. All I know

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gray olive 661Shall we use just simple past tense like "He never felt so lonely"?

No. That ("He never felt so lonely.") would mean that past, present or future, his loneliness cannot be or have been of that intensity, which verges on nonsense. With "had", it means that in his past (from his point of view in our shared past), his loneliness had never equalle

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gray olive 661two past situations
gray olive 661He gazed miserably into the hedge. He had never felt so lonely.

The first sentence is about the situation during a time in the past.
The second sentence is about the situation during all the time before that.

That's two past situations.

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