Talk:James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

message: This is the worst page on the whole wiki, is unnecessary, and there is no need for this in the english language. needs deleting--92.20.97.40 (talk) 07:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You have got to be the dumbest wikipedian; I vote we delete you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.25.0.206 (talk) 10:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, we need this article 2600:4040:9A4B:3E00:B45D:B02:B5BE:98C6 (talk) 19:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

text: Definitely don't delete it. It's good reference for lexical ambiguity.Merpin (talk) 21:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

text: We're not a webhost. At best this should be merged. Its a small article and unlikely to be expanded. It borders on trivia, and "making sense" is subjective. Most people cannot make sense of it without a full explanation, hence why its given as a test. Wikipedia isn't a teaching aid, nor is it a guide to solving word puzzles. WP:NOT. --58.230.124.16 (talk) 15:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Don't Delete: No reason for deletion has been specified.  it is noteable and encyclopedic.  merging would be better than deletion but i do not think it is necessary. 210.55.20.102 (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This has to be the greatest article ever written. Why would you want to delete this? 76.95.40.6 (talk) 10:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

text: This is a very useful article, like the other homophone articles on wikipedia that link to this one. I don't think it should be deleted. I see a problem with the title though. It should change to "James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" or something which makes sense as a whole. The other homophone articles have titles which do make sense as a whole.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.51.135.191 (talk) 15:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: I changed the markup of the quote. The previous way made it look like something on the left was missing; it was awkward, really. --212.242.51.72 (talk) 08:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|Cquote}} to {{tl|quote}} 

message: The discussion about where to put this article seems to have gone stale. Of course I am a bit biased, but it appears to me that since I showed up there has not been any consensus to merge the article anywhere or to have it here, and of course I personally believe my arguments are most excellent. Most of the editors who participated in the AfD and suggested the rename to "had had had..." seem to have disappeared from the discussion.
I propose we move this back to the name that actually makes sense, the full sentence. This article is about the sentence, not specifically the string of "hads". The full sentence is also a much more likely search term than the string of "hads", as pointed out by Jennavecia above. The current title just doesn't really make much sense, and since the proposed merger was never completed it seems the original motivation for the title change is gone. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If we aren't going to include it in a broader article under a mroe reasonable subject title to make it a reasonable search term, then I support the fuller title per the above discussion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move back to original name 

message: There are I believe in this sentence 'James, while John had had "had"," had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.' mis-matched quotation marks.
I'm not about to remove any quotation marks, for I'm having a hard enough time getting my head around the sentence as it is, with out attempting a correction that could alter the intended meaning of the sentence. Van Dieman (talk) 03:27, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 03:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  mis-matched quotation mark? 

message: The stated reference is not the first appearance of this idea. I`m not sure if this is the first, but it appeared in Boys' Life Oct 1923 on page 40 (see google books like below)
http://books.google.ca/books?id=yLeS1Hag-TEC&pg=PA40&dq=%22king+and+and+and%22&hl=en&ei=Ih-GTY6fF8LngQe5xaHcCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22king%20and%20and%20and%22&f=false  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.171.41 (talk) 15:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you referring to the Car Talk reference? Nothing in the text suggests that that is the first appearance of this example. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Well, I just said it to a friend yesterday... does that make my usage worthy of appearing in an encyclopedia?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.20.131.176 (talk) 21:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  fish and and and and and chips 

message: :The example refers to two students, James and John, who are required by an English test to describe a man who, in the past, had [had] a cold. John writes "The man had a cold" which is incorrect grammatically [in this case], while James writes the correct "The man had had a cold". Since James' answer was right, it had had a better effect on the teacher.
I've added the phrases in brackets.  The article should use crystal grammar when describing what is grammatically correct.  "In the past" here is trying to strictly create a scenario in which only "had had" would be correct (similar to awkwardly using "in the past, has a cold" to denote a situation where the past tense should be used), but it falls short, as "In the past" could be argued to be rhetorical (reducing to "a man who had a cold"), making the sentence in violation of the very rule the whole article is trying to get across.  The extra "had" forces "In the past" it to be rhetorical, eliminating ambiguity, and helps reflect the bottom line of the article (use two "had"s).  Maybe it could use work but I think this is an improvement. Squish7 (talk) 05:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articulateness in explaining grammar 

message: Shouldn't the punctuation be 
 Had 'had had' had TGC’s approval?
istead of
 'Had had' had had TGC’s approval?
VZakharov (talk) 09:11, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, it's correct as it is.  Compare it to the punctuated example above: the semicolon above becomes a period in this example, and the double quotes become single quotes.  Grollτech (talk) 20:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Well of Lost Plots 

message: About the article name. Can't read explanation. --78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm confused 

message: A version reported by Frederick Lehmann (1919-2001) ("FREDERICK LEHMANN: LAWYER, PATRON OF THE ARTS." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 26, 2001) was punctuating the English sentence:
had had had had had had had had had had had had would have been correct
No citable references to it found, so far.2605:6000:ED0D:9E00:1882:5562:E08A:9A93 (talk) 00:14, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Variant ... had had had ... 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: For example, I came up with this chain of modifications to go from a meaningful sentence group to the example sentence in a way that most people can probably follow:
Start with three distinct statements:
James had possessed [the answer] "orange". John had possessed [the answer] "blue". [The answer] "orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Remove the bits in brackets:
James had possessed "orange". John had possessed "blue". "Orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Contrast the first two statements by combining them with "while":
James had possessed "orange", while John had possessed "blue". "Orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Move the "while" clause into the middle of the first clause:
James, while John had possessed "blue", had possessed "orange". "Orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Compare the above to this more natural sentence which uses similar grammar:
James, while his dad had warned against it, had moved to Russia with his new girlfriend.
Merge the combined sentence with the remaining sentence:
James, while John had possessed "blue", had possessed "orange", and, fortunately for James, "orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
James, while John had possessed "blue", had possessed "orange", but, unfortunately for John, "orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Reduce the conjunction and subsequent dependant clause to a semi-colon:
James, while John had possessed "blue", had possessed "orange"; "orange" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Substitute John's answer "had" for "blue" once, and James' answer "had had" for "orange" twice:
James, while John had possessed "had", had possessed "had had"; "had had" had imparted a better effect on the teacher.
Substitute the verb "had" for "possessed" twice, and the same verb "had" for "imparted" once:
James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
(This kind of thing could also help on other articles, such as the "buffalo" article.) 199.127.114.114 (talk) 08:40, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using word substitution and some kind of process would help people understand better. 

message: The past perfect is used to specify that one event is in the past of a second event. For example, "Before lunch today, I had eaten twice already." If there is no other event between now and when I "had eaten", we can't use the past perfect. Instead, we just use the past tense: "I ate twice already today."
So let's look at John's answer: "The man had a cold." This is correct, because the hypothetical event occurred sometime before John wrote his answer. What about James' answer? "The man had had a cold." Note that the sentence doesn't answer the question "prior to what?", and is therefore incorrect.
Ok, so this article is about the longer sentence. It doesn't actually matter if the teacher is wrong. It just matters how the teacher graded the papers. But we run into the same issue numerous times in the longer sentence. By when had John had "had"? By when had James had "had had"? By when had "had had" had an effect on the teacher?
We might argue the answer to the first two questions is "by the time the teacher collected the answers", but since it isn't specified anywhere in the sentence (and there's no surrounding paragraph to reference), I'd argue the sentence is incorrect on both counts. Plus, I'd argue that John and James' answers were still had by them while the teacher was grading the answers, so the past perfect is still wrong. (I wrote an answer on my test [past tense], but I still have the answer on my test while the teacher is grading it [present tense]. Otherwise, how could they be grading it?) Further, there's definitely no answer given to the third question, making it incorrect on that count.
The correct sentence should therefore be 'James, while John had "had", had "had had"; "had had" [incorrectly] had a better effect on the teacher', or 'James, while John had "had", had "had had"; "had" had a better effect on the teacher'.
Now, it's important to keep quoted sentences in their historical forms, so I wouldn't recommend trying to correct history. But it would probably be wise to point out the errors in the sentence. 199.127.114.114 (talk) 08:40, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it's correct as it stands. For evidence of that I point 199.127.114.114 to his/her own explanation using substitutions and colours in the preceding section. Strange to have written all that and then go on to try to dismantle it in this section. 87.75.117.183 (talk) 19:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

text: John writes "The man had a cold", which the teacher marks incorrect. The teacher was incorrect to mark John's paper incorrect. "Had" can be used to indicate a past or current occurrence. How often do you hear someone say, "I had had a cold" ? A more correct way would be to say "the man previously had a cold". Flight Risk (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick Google search explains things. Not sure why people still don't do that: https://www.englishgrammar.org/have-had-and-had-had/#:~:text=The%20past%20perfect%20form%20of,had%20a%20chance%20to%20apologize. TricksterWolf (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The sentence isn't even correct. 

message: It says  is a reinterpretation of the sentance (meaning James' had answer was better), but I don't think it makes sense, as after the semicolon, it says  had had a better effect, not had. However, I would like to get a second opinion on this. ― Qwerfjkl | 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂  (please use  on reply) 17:40, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reinterpretation of the sentance 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :James while John had a better effect on the teacher. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 11#James while John had a better effect on the teacher until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.   -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 15:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "James while John had a better effect on the teacher" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]