To continue with verbs, we all know that they come in different tenses – present and past and future – and people once upon a time used to know about principal parts and participles and go even further and understand the subjunctive, which still bedevils those learning Spanish, and the pluperfect – which is actually the same as the past perfect, but I’ll take any opportunity to write pluperfect. But let’s simply call my subject for today the past perfect.
The past and the past perfect are used to indicate that something happened (past) and something else happened before that (past perfect). The past perfect is formed by putting had before the past tense. Simple, right?
Here’s an example to clarify the matter: “For years he had considered Warren G. Harding to be among the greatest of men, but he revised his opinion after reading his salacious letters to his lover.” There are three times in this sentence, two explicit and one implied: 1. He admired Harding from 2000-2013 (past perfect); 2. at the beginning of 2014 (past), he read the revealing letters; and C. (implied), in the present he no longer thinks so highly of Harding, since the revision of his opinion occurred some months ago.
You are now ready to consider this pair of sentences from the New York Times Magazine of June 29: “As Edward and Rebecca Cummings passed the town of Center Ossipee, N. H., in their new 1926 Franklin sedan, it began to snow. They left their home in Cambridge, Mass., hours before, driving a car with high seats, no defroster, and a top speed of about 50.”
This is the opening of a piece by Susan Cheever, who has had published three biographies, most notably a joint study of the 19th-century writers of Concord, Mass.; five novels; and three memoirs, the best-known of which deals with her father, John, himself a novelist and famed writer of short stories who won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
And it should be apparent to all that the second sentence calls for the use of the past perfect: “They had left their home. . . .” After all, didn’t leaving occur (or hadn’t leaving occurred) “hours before?”
Colloquially, we all use the past tense twice in lots of places where the past perfect is called for. We say “I read the book because Joe recommended it” instead of “because Joe had recommended it.” But if the Times prints an article by Susan Cheever which so flagrantly ignores the past perfect, something’s going on. And it is the same thing I highlighted a while ago with “firelane” in the sign at the liquor store.
In short, I believe that we’re in a period of increasing simplification of the English language. Examples abound. There are has been almost universally replaced by there’s (“There’s so many complex interactions at play here,” says someone on NPR). Gender sensitivity has led to their as the common possessive because his is sexist and his and her awkward. And not many people, even in writing, bother to insert that, as I did at the beginning of this paragraph. Add the disappearing past perfect to the list.
And here’s a flashback to compound words: A flyer from Kass Ardinger tells me that she knows “how important it is for women to have access to affordable, high-quality healthcare.” A letter supporting one candidate for state senator claims that Dan Feltes “appreciates that providing access to health care is critical to economic growth. . . .” One word or two? Let the voters decide.
