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No one knew what I did.

No one knew what I had done.

Which sentence is grammatically correct and what's the difference between them?

Mason Gabe
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    Both are correct, depending on context. – Kate Bunting Nov 29 '21 at 17:52
  • @KateBunting What's the difference between them? – Mason Gabe Nov 29 '21 at 18:38
  • The normal "rule" is you use Past Perfect when the "narrative reference time" is already in the past, and you want to refer to something that took place *before* that reference time. Things get complicated when your example includes something like *no-one knew, because that automatically forces us into the past anyway (and what the speaker did / had done* must have occurred earlier than some later point in time (when it was meaningful to talk about whether they knew about the earlier action). Because of this, you can't normally distinguish two different contexts here. – FumbleFingers Nov 29 '21 at 18:46

2 Answers2

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I agree with everybody above. Thank you, guys! I would also add that "had done" refers to something that happened prior to "No one knew..." and had some consequences, while "did" coincides with the moment of speaking. Progressive form - "was doing" would show the action in its progress while "did" simply states the fact without connecting it to the moment of speaking. Much depends on the context and what a speaker wants to emphasize. Thus:

  • No one knew what I had done. - something happened in the past and probably had some results or consequences.
  • No one knew what I did. - states the fact of something that happened at the moment of speaking or in the past but not necessarily had any consequences. It's just a thought.-
  • No one knew what I was doing. - refers to the specific moment in the past when nobody had any idea of what what going on around.
Iren
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I agree completely with Kate Bunting's comment and mostly with FF's. Both sentences are grammatically correct, but they have different meanings:

  1. The simple predicates of both clauses are in the same tense, so the reader will probably infer that both actions ("knew" and "did") occurred at the same time. For example, perhaps you were feeding your dinner to the dog under the table and no one else at the table knew what you were doing. (I might prefer the progressive aspect in that case, though: "No one knew what I was doing.")

  2. The simple predicate of the second clause is in the past perfect tense, implying that its action occurred before the action of the first clause, which is in the simple past tense.

MarcInManhattan
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