Usage : ...had had...

Hi!
It is a past perfect of the verb to have. You can use it to express an activity that happened before another activity in the past.
For example,
She had had many men before she met him.

Thanks Antonia.

Meanwhile, are these sentence correct? :

*Ashok had had many problems before he sold the car.
*He had had many cars before he got married.

Praveen.

You're welcome!
I think they are.

Dear Parveen,
Though your examples seem grammatically correct to me, something is not fit, I think. For me, it is more normal to say that Ashok had many problems ... rather than your sentence. We use past perfect to indicate that something is DONE before another activity. "To have", meaning "to possess" doesn't refer to an activity, so it is not common with this structure, though there are s

And here is another structure you can use ...hah had to...., here the second "had" is the past form of "have to". And here is another example that you can use the second "had" with the sense of possession, in the indirect speech structure:
He said he had had a family before he got homeless.

He had had many cars before he got married

Somehow I understand this sentence as follows:
"in the years before he got married, he happened on several occasions to have owned different cars", but to me it doesn't mean that he actually owned a car on the day he got married.

*Ashok had had many problems before he sold the car.

Dear Pieanne,

I'm very sorry for giving 'akward' sentences as examples. I wanted to try out the new word and it resulted in a mess.

Anyway, in the sentence, " Ashok....", I actually tried to mean that he had many (health or some other)problems before he sold the car.

Better paraphrase( Is the usage of this word correct?) it as : "Ashok had had many health problem be

YES, because there's a logical link between both facts

Dear LanguageLover( Hey! what's your name,uh?),

I'm afraid I couldn't make out even a bit out of your stuff. I'm very sorry to tell this despite the fact that you have taken considerable amount to strain to post your view.

Can you explain them(your post on 05 Apr 2005 10:29 PM ) in simpler terms. I don't know much about those grammar rules like past perfect, this and that....

Hi Praveen, my name is Nima. I know in Hindi, "nim" is the name of leaves of a tree, and I've heard about Indians with the name of Nima, but it's ok if you want to make fun of it, or change the letters position! Ha ha.
And sorry for my unclear expressions. It's not important, you've already got your answer. But I'll try to paraphrase it some other time. Ok?