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Gene93 Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary
sell out
Hello,
I personally can't see any difference between "The shop had sold out of shirts." and "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out." Don't they mean the same? There were no shirts left. Some people here say they are very different.
I personally can't see any difference between "The shop had sold out of shirts." and "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out." Don't they mean the same? There were no shirts left. Some people here say they are very different.
Top answer
"The shop had sold out of shirts" does not itself contain the meaning "I wanted to buy a shirt". In many contexts this might be assumed, but exceptions will exist.
- "The shop had sold out of shirts" does not itself contain the meaning "I wanted to buy a shirt".
- In many contexts this might be assumed, but exceptions will exist.
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5 Answers
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"The shop had sold out of shirts" does not itself contain the meaning "I wanted to buy a shirt". In many contexts this might be assumed, but exceptions will exist.
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Hello, GPY,
I included "I wanted to buy a shirt" because without it the sentence would look like this "but the shop had sold out" and would sound odd. Let's try again: "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out." and "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out of shirts." Now shirt has been used twice in the second and I don't think that's nice, but they mean the same, don't t
I included "I wanted to buy a shirt" because without it the sentence would look like this "but the shop had sold out" and would sound odd. Let's try again: "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out." and "I wanted to buy a shirt, but the shop had sold out of shirts." Now shirt has been used twice in the second and I don't think that's nice, but they mean the same, don't t
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I was just told that the use of "past perfect" didn't fir the context. But why? The shirts had sold out before I went to the shop. I went to the shop and they told me there weren't any shirts left.
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Gene93I was just told that the use of "past perfect" didn't fir the context.That is not correct (unless possibly there is some other important context that you haven't made clear). In itself, the use of the past perfect is fine in that sentence.
At the time: I want to buy a shirt, but the shop has sold out.
Talking about it later: I wan
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