XPost: alt.usage.english
cúigiú -------- looks a bit like Chee-gyuu w w w
On 5/26/2024 11:09 AM, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Ar an cúigiú lá is fiche de mí Bealtaine, scríobh navi:
> 1) Tom had been delivering pizzas before he started working as a
> security guard.
The canonical use of [had been] is
Tom had been delivering pizzas for 3 years [,]
when he got his 2nd job as a part-time security guard.
i think you 'd be better off studying the
variations of:
I'd waited in the station for 10 minutes
when the train arrived.
I was waiting ...
I had been waiting....
>
> I can see three possibilities:
>
> a) He started working as a security guard right after he stopped
> delivering pizzas.
>
> b) There was a time lapse between the time he stopped delivering pizzas
> and the time he started working as a security guard.
>
> c) He kept on delivering pizzas after he started working as a security
> guard.
>
> Which of the cases 1-3 can correspond to (a)?
Do you mean ‘which of the cases a-c can correspond to (1)?’
For me a-c are all consistent with 1), but a) is most likely. It’s the sort of
phrasing that will probably be from a journalist, and that has the difficulty these days that journalists are routinely idiots and their editors seem less likely to pick up their mistakes than they were.
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