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Samuraibabes Posted 11 years ago
Grammar
'Used to' in Past Narrative
Hello everyone,
Few hours ago, I was reading a novel I've currently been reading and I found this sentence that still seems odd for me whenever i read it :
"Jeynes used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near."
I'd known that 'Used to' was a subsitute of simple past to talk about old habits and facts but since the sentence had been written in the book that comes with past perspective narrating, does the sentence actually tells us that Jeynes had always called Arya a horseface in the previous timeline of the story or does it explain that Jeynes was still calling her that way in the occuring timeline ?
Please help. Thanks
Few hours ago, I was reading a novel I've currently been reading and I found this sentence that still seems odd for me whenever i read it :
"Jeynes used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near."
I'd known that 'Used to' was a subsitute of simple past to talk about old habits and facts but since the sentence had been written in the book that comes with past perspective narrating, does the sentence actually tells us that Jeynes had always called Arya a horseface in the previous timeline of the story or does it explain that Jeynes was still calling her that way in the occuring timeline ?
Please help. Thanks
Top answer
Context is the best judge here. My suspicion is that it refers to a previous timeline within the story.
- Context is the best judge here.
- My suspicion is that it refers to a previous timeline within the story.
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5 Answers
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Context is the best judge here. My suspicion is that it refers to a previous timeline within the story.
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But could you tell me why did the author use simple past : ', and neigh whenever she came near.' when it actually tells us about routinity in the previous time within the story. Should it have been ",and neigh whenever she'd come near" ?
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He used to neigh at the same time as she came near, not after she had come near.
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"Jeynes used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near."
We can assume that "used to" goes with the other two verbs, as they always occurred at the same time as well.
We can assume that "used to" goes with the other two verbs, as they always occurred at the same time as well.
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