Tense Check
Hi Everyone,
I saw this sentence online:
She said he had been missing for a fortnight and had been captured by an officer and taken to the clinic, where they had been regular clients.
I'm wondering what your thoughts are about the past perfect continuous and past perfect so close together within the sentence.
Could the past perfect (had been captured) be changed to the simple past (was)? That would sound better.
Thanks,
CC 
Top answer
In this case "had been missing" is not strictly speaking past perfect continuous since "missing" is adjectival. "had been missing" and "had been captured" seem individually correct to me, governed as they are by "she said". My criticism is that the sequence of these events, or the relationship between them, is not clearly expressed.
- In this case "had been missing" is not strictly speaking past perfect continuous since "missing" is adjectival.
- "had been missing" and "had been captured" seem individually correct to me, governed as they are by "she said".
- My criticism is that the sequence of these events, or the relationship between them, is not clearly expressed.
- Changing "had been captured" to "was captured" does not seem to improve this.
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In this case "had been missing" is not strictly speaking past perfect continuous since "missing" is adjectival. "had been missing" and "had been captured" seem individually correct to me, governed as they are by "she said". My criticism is that the sequence of these events, or the relationship between them, is not clearly expressed. Changing "had been captured" to "was captured" does not seem
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