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Someone asks me:

Was John surprised when he won?

I have two answers to choose from. Which is more appropriate?

  1. Yes. He had not expected to.
  2. Yes. He did not expect to.

Personally I like the first answer. I feel like there is an omitted part after Yes which establishes the time frame—"Yes[, he was surprised]." And since his expectations took place before he started being surprised, I have to use the double past.

Yes[, he was surprised]. He had not expected to [win before he started being surprised].

StoneyB on hiatus
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mosceo
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  • @ Graduate: I'd be interested to know what textbook you're referring to there. Statistically speaking I'd be pretty certain your first version is actually more common in most contexts, but I can't see that as justification for saying it's "to be preferred" anyway. Both versions are perfectly acceptable *stylistic choices* in almost all contexts. – FumbleFingers Jul 08 '13 at 16:38
  • @FumbleFingers: "New Headway," Advanced, 2003 year. I want to make it clear, that I gave myself these two answers to choose from, not the textbook. I just found out in the answers that the second answer was preferred. – mosceo Jul 08 '13 at 16:49
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    @FumbleFingers I think what you said is more true of BrE than AmE. On that subject, here's some interesting reading on the present perfect and simple past: http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/08/present-perfect.html –  Jul 08 '13 at 17:10
  • @snailboat: There are certainly some significant US/UK differences in ancillary verb usages, but I'm far from convinced this is one of them. There are millions of hits in NGrams for both He had not expected to and He did not expect to, but I see no significant difference when I toggle between US/UK corpuses (in both, OP's first version is the newer form, which has only recently become the more common form). – FumbleFingers Jul 08 '13 at 21:14
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    @FumbleFingers Without the context, you can't just compare appearances of the two uses. The thing that makes the first option sound more appropriate is that we're already talking about something in the past, and this is further. Simply comparing the usage of two different verb tenses gives us absolutely no insight into which is more appropriate in a specific instance. (I would say he did not expect to win to explain why he is so surprised. But not why he was so surprised.) – Emmabee Jul 08 '13 at 21:32
  • @Emmabee: Sure, you can't draw conclusions from a few isolated examples if they lack context (or one person's blog, as linked by snailboat). But I've compared millions of instances in Google Books, from which it's quite clear negated Past Perfect was virtually unknown in OP's construction a couple of centuries ago (by implication, in any context). You can reasonably justify linking Past Perfect to the fact that he *was* surprised, but others can just as easily link it to the fact that (unexpectedly) he *did* win. Both forms are perfectly acceptable and justifiable in this context. – FumbleFingers Jul 08 '13 at 21:59
  • @FumbleFingers The number of instances is irrelevant if they're all without context. I agree with the conclusion you've drawn that negated past perfect wasn't used a couple hundred years in the past (which is interesting in its own right), but I don't see that as being at all related to what the best option is (now) for this specific construct. Each form is more appropriate in a different context, so this could say as much about which context was more commonly talked about than verb tenses. Unless you can chart how they are used in this context then it's only peripherally related data. – Emmabee Jul 08 '13 at 22:16
  • @Emmabee: I'm taking it for granted that on average people's reasons for talking about what someone did or didn't expect *in the past* won't have changed dramatically over the centuries. But increasingly we tend to use Past Perfect in modern times because it's now grammatically unexceptional. And, as I've pointed out, your justification linking this only to the fact that he was surprised carries no weight with people who see OP's context as being "further in the past" simply because what he expected was something happening before the win (which is also "past"). – FumbleFingers Jul 08 '13 at 22:22

1 Answers1

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I prefer the past perfect (had not expected) for exactly the reason you gave. There is already a time in the past being referenced (the time at which he won), and in order for the situation to make sense it is necessary that his expectations preceded that win.

Yes. He had not expected to [win before it happened, hence his surprise].

If the win was in the present, then I would definitely choose the simple past.

Is he surprised? Yes, he didn't expect to [win before now].

So then, the question becomes why doesn't your textbook also prefer the past perfect?

Well, the past tense isn't at all wrong. There isn't a timeline explicitly stated, and without the implied information we added the sentence is simply telling us about his mental state at a single point in time.

Yes, he did not expect to win.

It's not optimal, but it's still completely correct. The fact that it gave you the simple past can be chalked up to preferences.

Emmabee
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