Sequence of actions in my text.

Question

Hello,

I have great difficulty in understanding the sequence of the actions in a sentence I read. I have "I had begged", "she refused" and "I had sulked." Which came first, second, and last?

Here's the text:
And then one evening, after I had begged her to buy me a transistor radio, after she refused and I had sulked in silence for an hour,she said, "Why do you think you are missing something you never had?"

Thanks in advance,

Spoonfedbaby

Khoff · Accepted Answer

I think the sentence is confusing you because it really should say "after she had refused." Like "I had begged" and "I had sulked," "she had refused" describes a past action that occured before the past action "she said." Here's the order of events:

First I begged.

Then she refused.

Then I sulked for an hour.

After all of that, she said, "Why....."

Clive · Answer

Hi,

I wrote this before I saw Khoff's post, so here's yet another point of view.

And then one evening, after I had begged her to buy me a transistor radio, after she refused and I had sulked in silence for an hour,she said, "Why do you think you are missing something you never had?"
Here's the sequence of actions.

First, I had begged Then she refused Then I had sulked Then she said

The grammar does not really tell us this sequence for sure, we get it from thinking about the meaning behind the sentence. For example, if we talk about begging and refusing, usually the refusing happens after the begging. And the same applies to refusing, often followed by sulking.

Often, when we speak about two different events, we speak in chronological order. I came home and cooked dinner. But how about yesterday I won a million dollars in the lottery and I cooked dinner. Maybe I am telling about the most important thing first, although it happened second.

In your paragraph, the Past Perfect does not really tell you much except that things came before she said. You could replace the PP with just simple Past Tense.

I hope this makes things clear. If not, please write again, OK?

Best wishes, Clive

Anonymous · Answer

Khoff and Clive, many thanks

Spoonfedbaby

Sequence of actions in my text.

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions