British vs. American grammar question

Factual Questions
21

There is some cross-communication going on here, and I think it’s because the OP’s question isn’t a grammar question, but a stylistic one.

Yes, there does seem to be a stylistic difference. An American writer would have written:

Harry felt more warmly towards [or about] her than he had felt until now.

To an American the done sounds wrong. It doesn’t have a proper precedent in the sentence. The verb here is feel, so both sides of the “than” should have some form of feel. It seems that in British English, some form of “do” is an acceptable placeholder for other verbs. It doesn’t work like that in American English.

Once we’ve established that, the second “felt” can be omitted because it is understood.

22

OK, I think I get what Exapno Mapcase is saying. The “had done” isn’t meant to be “had felt” with “done” in place of "felt; it’s meant to be the past perfect tense of “did”.

So when Rowling says: “He felt more warmly than he had done” she is saying “He felt more warmly than he did” and perfecting the tense of “did”.

Whereas when I say: “He felt more warmly than he had [felt]” I’m saying “He felt more warmly than he felt” and perfecting the tense of the second “felt”.

So it’s not that the way that sounds natural to me is a different tense than the way Rowling writes it (they both have the second verb in the past perfect), it’s that we’re actually choosing different verbs.

So, I get how they both make grammatical sense. My main question, though is whether one is more of a British usage and one more of an American usage. I guess I have to think about why “had done” sounds strange to me. (And it sounds strange almost every time Rowling uses it – this is just one of many examples I’ve noticed.) It can’t just be that it’s past perfect, because my preferred construction, “had felt”, is also past perfect.

Let me think about when I would use “had done” vs. did . . .

I would say:
(1) “I ran more quickly today than I did yesterday.”
(2) “I ran more quickly today than I ever had [run] before.” (Rowling would probably say “had done” here.)
I’d probably only use “had done” in a sentence like:
(3) “I couldn’t believe what I had done.”

I think the difference is this: I’ll use “did” to substitute for another verb, but I won’t use “had done” to substitute for another verb. That is, in sentence (1) above, I could have said “I ran more quickly today than I ran yesterday”, but I substituted “did” for “ran”. In sentence (2) I won’t use “had done” in place of “had run”, although Rowling would. And it’s not because I avoid “had done” in general, since sentence (3) sounds totally natural to me. But in sentence (3), “had done” isn’t really taking the place of another verb.

So I guess my observation is this:

I think it sounds fine to replace simple past tense verbs with the past tense of “do”, but I think it sounds odd to replace past perfect verbs with the past perfect of “do”. In the latter case, I always leave the original verb, or just say “had” with the verb implied.

In the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling frequently replaces past perfect verbs with the past perfect of “do”.

My question is:
Is this a general difference between British and American English, or just a difference between Tim314 and J. K. Rowling?

It can’t just be about whether British speakers use the past perfect more, because I’m actually using the same tense as Rowling, I just refuse to replace my verb with a form of “do” when I’m in the past perfect tense.

23

Okay, now you’re getting into Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo territory.

24

John, where Sally had had “had had had had had”, had had “Had had had had” to be the correct usage. :confused:

At least, I think it’s something like “John, where Sally had had X, had had Y to be the correct usage.” Not so sure about X and Y.

25

On the paper was written the string of words had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had. <—Use punctuation to make sense out of this

(Hint: Just use quotation marks)

:slight_smile:

26

Why is it “to her” instead of “towards her” or “about her”? That sounds more jarring to me than the done.

27

I agree with Bytegeist. In regular US speech, I would also say that the latter statement is a past emphatic, whereas the first is just a simple past tense. I would almost never use the “I did buy the paint” form unless I’m being emphatic (as in your example, contradicting an assertion).

28

Cheap. :stuck_out_tongue:

-FrL-

29

My answer is:

John, where Sally had had “had, ‘had had’,” had had “had had, ‘had had.’” “had had, ‘had had’” had to be the correct usage.

I think that had the right number of hads…

-FrL-

ETA: I’m pretty sure you can extend this indefinitely by embedding more and more layers of quoted had hads.

30

This poor, overly complicated thread.

Yes, in my experience, British English does tend to use the full form of verbs where American English just uses “had.” It’s not just Rowling.

Could you bathe the cat?

Brit.: I could do, but…
Amer.: I could, but…

31

“I completed my math homework faster than I ever had done.” Maybe a better example in the same light, because we’re not expecting to repeat the word “completed,” and we also “do” homework. So this is really a repetition of the above posters:

“I completed my math homework faster than I ever did.” Probably very colloquial, but it makes my brain hurt.
“I completed my math homework faster than I ever have.” Still doesn’t convey the right sense of time.
“I completed my math homework faster than I ever had.” Makes perfect sense to me.
“I completed my math homework faster than I ever had done.” Makes perfect sense to me, just like in the OP.

32

I was an English teacher in the States and would prefer:

“I completed my math homework faster than ever.”

33

I wish I could find an example. The thing that springs to mind is when you hear police giving statements in court “I did apprehend the suspect” etc. I’ve seen it in several US blogs in the recent past too, but now can’t find any. Which, in SDMB terms, means it doesn’t exist, I guess. :wink:

Oh, here’s one.

34

Making this about the use of a “full form” seems to be a mischaracterization of the difference.

“Had done” is not the “full form” of “had felt.”

35

Yep, that one sounds weird to me, too.

In the court testimony case, it doesn’t sound that strange to me. It sounds like it’s being emphatic. In the Yahoo! example, that emphatic sounds out of place to me. From my experience, that’s not a common way to construct that question.

36

I would only say “I did complete my tax forms” if someone was claiming I hadn’t. Otherwise, it’s “I completed my tax forms,” at least for this American.

37

Unless you were on any of the courtroom reality shows like Judge Judy. Then every sentence would include the word “had”.

“Yo honor, what had happened was. . .”

38

True, but it is the full form of “had done.” Since “do” is an auxilary verb, it can be a placeholder for another verb (feel), which is how I understand it to be acting here.

39

On the other hand, the Yahoo! example sounds okay to me, because the issue of third party filing is a common source of confusion (and as we can see, the two answers provided are opposites of each other). The writer of the question is anticipating the need for emphasis.

40

And this, I think, is the difference. As tim314 said, in American English, did is used as a placeholder, but had done is not used as a placeholder. That’s why it sounds strange to Americans. If we’re going to use the full form, we use the actual verb.