Implied in newspaper headlines

VILLAGES DESTROYED IN EARTHQUAKE (= have been destroyed)

Letters, postcards, etc.

We've just arrived in Hong Kong, and though we haven't had time to see much yet, we re sure we're going to enjoy ourselves

The simple past perfect tense

Form of the simple past perfect tense

The past perfect is formed with had + the past participle See under have [> 10.28] for details about form

/	had	(I'd)
You	had	(You'd)	arrived
He	had	(He'd)	finished
She	had	(She'd)	started [> 9.22]
It	had	(ltd)	shut
We	had	(We'd)	lost
You	had	(Youd)	drunk
They	had	(Theyd)

Uses of the past perfect tense

It is sometimes supposed that we use the past perfect simply to describe 'events that happened a long time ago'. This is not the case We use the simple past for this purpose [> 9.17.1]: Anthony and Cleopatra died in 30 B.C

The past perfect referring to an earlier past

The main use of the past perfect is to show which of two events happened first. Here are two past events:

The patient died The doctor arrived We can combine these two sentences in different ways to show their relationship in the past:

The patient died when the doctor arrived (i.e. the patient died at

the time or just after the doctor arrived)

The patient had died when the doctor arrived (i.e. the patient was

already dead when the doctor arrived) The event that happened first need not be mentioned first:

The doctor arrived quickly, but the patient had already died

The simple past perfect tense

Some typical conjunctions used before a past perfect to refer to 'an earlier past' are: when and after, as soon as, by the time that. They often imply a cause-and-effect relationship: We cleared up as soon as our guests had left

Adverbs often associated with the present perfect [> 9.25-26]: already ever for (+ period of time),just, never never before since (+ point of time) are often used with the past perfect to emphasize the sequence of events:

When I rang, Jim had already left

The boys loved the zoo They had never seen wild animals before

The past perfect as the past equivalent of the present perfect

The past perfect sometimes functions simply as the past form of the

present perfect: Juliet is excited because she has never been to a dance before Juliet was excited because she had never been to a dance before

This is particularly the case in indirect speech [> 15.13n.3]

Used in this way, the past perfect can emphasize completion: / began collecting stamps in February and by November I had collected more than 2000

Yet can be used with the past perfect, but we often prefer expressions like until then or by that time. Compare: