Via my “Reply” in this thread, I plan to regularly post new questions related to verb tenses – as I come up with them. Thanks.
Q1) I’m curious to know how the three different tenses below affect the meaning of the sentence.
I also wonder if Americans and Britons favour different tenses here, considering that the Perfect Tenses are somewhat more common in British English.
Man: “I sympathise with your desire to defend your late husband, but…perhaps you are too deeply involved in this situation?”
Woman: “I would not have expected my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
Woman: “I did not expect my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
Woman: “I had not expected my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
I may have missed it in one of the other (many) threads, but could you please describe your own context?
Understanding the audience to which you are describing a thing is as important as understanding the thing you are describing. It’s useful to know where you are coming from.
Regarding the context: (in fiction) This Man and Woman and countless others are in the middle of a heated debate – in a setting as formal as a conference.
Midwest American here. Here’s how I read your dialogue:
Woman: “I would not have expected my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
Something to the effect of: “[Had I thought about it], I would not have expected my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.” However, in my experience, context can mean a lot. It can straightforwardly mean “I didn’t think about it, but if I had, I would not have expected…” It can also imply, in the right context, “I should not have expected…” and therefore your opinion that I should expect such a thing is quite gauche and offensive. I can easily read this interpretation into your dialogue.
Woman: “I did not expect my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
More straightforward: “[Before this], I did not expect my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
Woman: “I had not expected my presence here to be misconstrued in such a manner.”
“Had not” carries a connotation of occurring some time in the the past, and not relatively recently. In your example, I would assume that the Woman realized some time ago that her presence might be misconstrued, so a few hours ago (for example) she “had not expected,” but more recently she had. Contrast that with “did not,” where I would assume that the Woman only just now realizes that her presence might be misconstrued. (However, the difference between “did not” and “had not” is slight, and in practice people wind up using either, with a preference for “did not,” so in reality I wouldn’t assume too much from the word choice.)
