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Mr genuine Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Spend vs spending

Of the people I knew, those that were under the weather from time to time had imbibed excessively, spent far too much time lifting the elbow.

(Grammatically, shouldn't it be: 'spending' instead of 'spent'? What do you call this structure?)
  

Top answer

It means this: Of the people I knew, those that were under the weather from time to time had imbibed excessively, HAD spent far too much time lifting the elbow.

  • It means this: Of the people I knew, those that were under the weather from time to time had imbibed excessively, HAD spent far too much time lifting the elbow.
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3 Answers
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It means this:

Of the people I knew, those that were under the weather from time to time had imbibed excessively, HAD spent far too much time lifting the elbow.
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Do we call this ellipsis?
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The sentence is overly complex, so let's remove the distracting elements:

Of the people I knew, those that were under the weather from time to time had imbibed excessively, spent far too much time lifting the elbow.

You caught the mistake. "spent" is a finite verb (simple past), and is not syntactically correct.

"Spending," a non-finite verb, works

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