Have you heard 'had had' lately?

Aughnanure · Post by **Aughnanure** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:35 pm

Whilst cleaning out some rubbish I came across a cutting from at least 10 years ago, from 'The Australian' Letters page(I guess)

"Your recent briefs about "ands" reminded me of the repetitive use of "had".

Two students, Smith and Jones [notice how those two are always in something?], sat an examination and were obliged to choose between "had' and "had had" in a sentence. Smith, while Jones had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had the examiner's approval. Dr. Geoff Long, Bega NSW.".

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I feel that I had had .........

Moderator-----This was supposed to go into the Dictionary ?????

sunray · Post by **sunray** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:49 pm

"...had had..." That'd be the Queen's English. Had, past tense possessive...had, possessive. For example. Smith and Jones had a beer. Smith and Jones had had a beer. The former is an action. The latter a description of an action in the past tense.

What any of this has to do with Enfield and Classic British Firearms escapes me though.

Woftam · Post by **Woftam** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:36 am

I'm sure Eoin can tie it into Enfields. I'm sure he had a brilliant way of doing this, it's just that he idea he had had, had escaped him momentarily when he wrote that. Isn't that right Eoin ?

Aughnanure · Post by **Aughnanure** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:29 am

I had had the intention of putting 'had had' into the Dictionary however something in cyberspace had a different idea, consequently 'had had' had had it.

Eoin.

In New Delhi on a sloooowwww computer, with a sloowww 'qwerty' key board.

A square 10 · Post by **A square 10** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:03 pm

id actualy typed this a bit ago and became perplexed as to why it looked so wrong in print and sounded so correct in speech , glad im not alone out here