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He placed an order OR He has placed an order. He has now be waiting for three weeks but no goods have arrived.

My question is: Does the first sentence denote the starting point of the following action and has to be put in the past tense.

Or is it present perfect, since no specific time is mentioned, but it is linked to the present, since it is promised that the good will arrive the following week.

I am ashamed but completely at a loss, which one is correct. Your help is very much appreciated.

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    Both are fine. It depends what you want to say. Use Simple Past (placed) if you're interested in *what he did* in the past ("What did he do yesterday?", "He logged on to the website, placed the order, then logged off", for example). Use Present Perfect (has placed) if you're interested in describing *his current state* (*because* he's placed an order, he's *now* a customer awaiting delivery, for example). – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '23 at 13:02
  • @FumbleFingers That's a friendly answer without jargon. Post it and you'll be in the bosom of appreciation. – Yosef Baskin Oct 29 '23 at 13:25
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    @YosefBaskin: I voted to close the question as a duplicate. I just wrote that very short summary because the "canonical post" on using Perfect verb forms is quite long. Unless the OP here asks something specific that's not covered by either my comment OR the canonical post, I think this one should be closed. – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '23 at 13:53
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    "He has now been waiting." – Kate Bunting Oct 29 '23 at 13:55

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