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In this excerpt from Roald Dahl's story Lamb to the Slaughter:

And when it was all wrapped and she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

I think this sentence means that she paid first, and then it was wrapped and she put on her brightest smile.

If I write:

She had paid and when it was all wrapped, she put on her brightest smile.

is it the same in terms of meaning?

childofsoong
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Yves Lefol
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    She paid before she smiled. The past perfect is about those two events here, not about the sequence of wrapping and paying. – TimR Mar 17 '16 at 11:02
  • So where do you place the wrapping while she was smiling or after?Both verbs are past simple – Yves Lefol Mar 17 '16 at 11:14
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    I can answer the question culturally and grammatically. Culturally, it would be wrap then pay. Grammatically? "it was all wrapped" conveys the idea that the wrapping was finished; without all it can mean when the wrapping was happening. Likewise,"had paid" indicates the payment was completed; "and she paid" can mean as she was in the act of paying. So we have two completed events. The verb forms themselves do not indicate which completed action was completed first. So we must look to "and". Does "and" here convey the idea of sequentiality? Possibly. It is uncertain. – TimR Mar 17 '16 at 12:01
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    He did not write "had been wrapped" because that would emphasize the action of wrapping, whereas he wants to emphasize the state of the package. – TimR Mar 17 '16 at 14:40

3 Answers3

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I like the way @JavaLatte started his answer:

A logician's reading of this would be

  • (A and B) then (C and D)

So you sentence's structure is:

(was wrapped and she had paid) then (she put a smile and said)

However, there is no explicit information whether it is (A then B) or it is (B then A). Similarly, there is no explicit information whether it is (C then D) or it is (D then C).

Regarding C and D, we have some experience: when they want to be nice, people first start smiling, and while smile, they say something, so it is most likely that we have (C then D).

However, we have no idea (from the sentence in the example, at least) who did the wrapping, so the wrapping could have been done at the same time with paying. Or before. Or after.

The only detail we know for sure is that both A and B finished, before C and D started.

virolino
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A logician's reading of this would be

(A and B) then (C and D)

A and B could occur in sequence, simultaneously, or in reverse order: likewise C and D. In narrative, we can often, but not always, assume that "and" means "and then", so the assumed order would be

A then B then C then D

Your version is

B then A then C

As TRomano suggested, "wrapped" may be confusing: it could be a passive participle, describing an action being carried out by some unspecified person, or it could be a past participle, indicating a completed process. The "all" certainly lends favour to the idea that it's a past participle, indicating a completed process.

"It is wrapped" is in the same time frame as "I have paid"- both are completed processes now. Changing "is" to "was" and "have" to "had", we move both phrases back in the time frame- to before the when event in Roald Dahl's sentence.

JavaLatte
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  • so if I understand you correctly we can't know which event comes first paying or wrapping , but what we know for sure is that both events are completed and comes before the smiling. However past perfect should indicate that in this case the first action is paying – Yves Lefol Mar 17 '16 at 20:37
  • No, user5577, the past perfect puts the paying before the event defined by when, ie the smile. The "was" puts "wrapped" before the event as well. The past perfect doesn't say anything at all about whether the paying was before the wrapping. – JavaLatte Mar 17 '16 at 21:02
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There are four actions: wrapping, paying, putting on a smile, and speaking.

Having paid for the newly wrapped present, she put on her brightest smile, and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

(perfect aspect)

What happened? First wrapping, then paying, after that smiling, and finally speaking.

After the present was wrapped, she paid, put on her brightest smile, and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

(passive in the prepositional phrase; sequence in the past)

What happened? First wrapping, then paying, after that smiling, and finally speaking.

After the present had been wrapped, she paid, put on her brightest smile, and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight."

(passive in the prepositional phrase; past perfect)

Same order of events.

And when it was all wrapped and she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

Stop. When... she had paid? It's ambiguous. We do not know the order of wrapping and paying. The simple past perfect is used to indicate the past of the past. This sentence goes in two directions: logically, wrapping happened first. But the grammar of the clause tells us that paying happened first.

This sentence makes sense:

When she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

It means that she did the action of paying and went on to do something else.

We use the past perfect to describe an action before a past time. So, the only way to make sense of the sentence in question is to say that paying happened before wrapping, almost as an afterthought of the author. It is a mess.

And when it was all wrapped and she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

If you do not think it is a mess, consider this:

And when it was all wrapped and she had already paid, she put on her brightest smile and said “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”

Now we are in her head, a confusing place to be. Ah, perhaps this is intentional!

The Answer to Your Question

No, your two sentences do not necessarily have the same meaning because we cannot establish the meaning of the first sentence. We have a bit of Virginia Woolf action going on here, and that is not necessarily a bad thing at all.

Patriot
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