Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 28

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August 28

Simple past or pluperfect?

Hey everyone, I can't decide whether I should use the simple past or the pluperfect in this sentence:

"The 9/11 attacks happened in September 2001, and in the same month four years later Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans."

or

"The 9/11 attacks happened in September 2001, and in the same month four years later Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed New Orleans."

What do other people think? —Angr (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think your indecision comes from the fact that you could use either with equal correctness. It flows well either way, Angr. (Pedants might prefer the pluperfect, but what do they know.) However, that might be because it's quite a long sentence. Cut it down to "Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans" - no, it's still line-ball there, I think. The pluperfect can sometimes have the effect of sounding overly fussy; if the meaning is perfectly well conveyed without it, consider not using it. Subject to the strictures of the context, of course. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that, for this meaning, I would prefer the pluperfect because it emphasises the sequence, but I agree that either can be used here. As Jack said, for some sentences the pluperfect is not needed, but, in your sentence, the emphasis seems to be on September, and the Katrina had finished its destruction by then. Dbfirs 20:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The rule is quite simple: after I did, and: after I had done, are always interchangeable. Eliko (talk) 20:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that they're both acceptable. Since after by itself indicates the temporal position of the event denoted by the verb in the following clause (whereas other such subordinating conjunctions, like when, may not), I myself tend to use the simple past. Cf. "After I ran five miles, I vowed never to exercise again" and "When I had run five miles, I vowed never to exercise again." Deor (talk) 20:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

¶ There's a real difficulty here, and it's not just a matter of style or the enquirer's grammatical skills. Katrina happened after 9/11/2001 but before Rita. However, although 9/11/2001 preceded both hurricanes, the proposed sentences can't use reasonably use the pluperfect for the terrorist attacks of 2001. My weaselly solution that at least preserves the force of the main point would be something like:

Four years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Manhattan, and two weeks after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed New Orleans, Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.

If you don't mind the breathless style of British documentaries and Dateline NBC, you could use an (anticipatory) subjunctive and write "Hurricane Rita would devastate the Gulf Coast".—— Shakescene (talk) 21:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for their input. Ultimately I went with the pluperfect, perhaps more for sentimental reasons (I feel the pluperfect is underused nowadays, so I wanted to give it a chance to stretch its legs) than for grammatical ones. Shakescene, I do mind the breathless use of "would" in that way and stamp it out wherever I encounter it at Wikipedia. I wouldn't be caught dead using it in my own writing. And Dbfirs is right that the emphasis is on September; indeed, September is the topic of the paragraph. This sentence appears in a blurb I was writing for a September newsletter where I wanted to talk about the poignancy of September's memories in recent American history as well as September's use as a nostalgic metaphor for the passage of time in songs like "September Song", "Try to Remember", and "Wake Me Up When September Ends". —Angr (talk) 13:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Alternation

Why do some people alternate between Commonwealth and US spellings? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 13:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a concrete example? Keep in mind, some people are Canadians, and Canadian English uses some Commonwealth spellings and some US spellings. (A place that sells those rubber things that go around the wheels of cars might be called a "Tyre Centre" in the UK and a "Tire Center" in the US, but would be a "Tire Centre" in Canada.) —Angr (talk) 13:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

As one of those Canadians, I object to the term "Commonwealth spelling". Canada is a Commonwealth country, remember. I personally refer only to American spelling or British spelling -- I say two standards are more than enough and anyone in another country should be free to pick and choose as they wish. --Anonymous, 15:45 UTC, August 28, 2010.

Yes, well, apply that theory to accents and see how far you get. And what about a people's right not to feel they have to slavishly identify with exactly one of the trans-Atlantic extremes? Each country has the freedom to have its own home-grown words, its own pronunciations, and, in some cases, its own spellings. Remember, there's a very great overlap between UK and US spellings, and the differences, which get all the attention, are marginal in the overall scheme of things. Australian English follows the broad train of international standard English spelling, but is selective about which of the marginal differences it uses. "Labour" is still the spelling for the general term, but the Australian Labor Party adopted the American spelling about a century ago, on the recommendation of King O'Malley, who hailed from North America (his birthplace is still a matter of dispute between Quebec and Kansas). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The right not to identify with one or the other is exactly what I am calling for when I say "free to pick and choose". I only reject the idea of its being done at a national level. --Anonymous, 22:25 UTC, September 1, 2010.

Do Irish people object to the term "Commonwealth spelling" too, on the grounds that they spell everything exactly the same as the British, but aren't in the Commonwealth? —Angr (talk) 21:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have a concrete example: an administrator on this wiki whose username starts with "H". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc iindyysgvxc (talk • contribs) 13:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure my spelling isn't consistent, as I'm not a native speaker. Well, it's also riddled with mistakes because I'm not a native speaker, but my point is that I don't really have any preference, nor was I ever trained to use one spelling but not the other. I try to follow American spelling, just to be consistent, but I often type "colour" instead of "color", and with some words I don't know even know which variety is supposed to which. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This goes for me as well. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure my spelling isn't consistent either, and I am a native speaker. I was born, grew up, and was educated in the U.S., so U.S. spelling is what used to come naturally to me, but now for a variety of reasons a lot of what I write is expected to use British spelling, so that's starting to come naturally to me too. Sometimes my "what looks right" instinct just isn't reliable anymore and I have to look things up in the dictionary to make sure I'm getting them right in the variety of English I'm writing at the moment. —Angr (talk) 14:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I mainly use U.S. spelling, with a few exceptions which seem to make sense to me (such as "worshipper")... AnonMoos (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I nearly always use UK spelling, but, occasionally, as a matter of courtesy, I reply to a question using matching US spelling. It is very rare to see mixed spelling in print (except as a result of error). Dbfirs 19:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

My view is one of awareness, acceptance and locally conforming. My biggest annoyance in this area is those from any one spelling sphere who aren't even aware that other perfectly valid spellings of English exist around the world, and who go around incorrectly correcting others' work. (Happens quite often on Wikipedia.) Obviously we need to accept the differences. And I always try to write in a way that causes the smallest waves among the expected audience of what I am writing. HiLo48 (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Part of the answer is that language is a fluid thing, and there are constant pressures to change. Some pressures are resisted, others are succumbed to. You ask about alternating, an interesting word in itself. In the verbal sense, it's only ever spelt "alternate". In the adjectival form, it was traditionally "alternative" (and that's also come to be used as a noun). But "alternate" is now the recognised US form of the adjective. Australians haven't generally used that form, but I see evidence that it's changing. I hear more and more Australians talking about "alternate opinions" etc, when until recently it would only ever have been "alternative opinions". The Aussie pronunciation varies between ALL-tə-nət and all-TER-nət (probably because it's a very newly used word over here and those who choose to use it aren't quite sure how it should be pronounced; my preference would be to avoid it entirely and stick with "alternative", but who am I to tell others which words they may and may not use); Americans always say it the first way, I believe. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on this post from the OP, it looks like the goal of this thread was not actually to learn the answer to a question but to pursue a vendetta or settle an argument or something. Do we really need to indulge? rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:35, 28 August 2010 (UTC)