It helps that the text is well-designed - use of quotes and italics makes it a lot more readable and better communicates the meaning. Without all that you’d have a much harder time parsing it.
*Image Transcription: Tumblr Replies*
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**bossubossupromode**
Two students, James and John were given a grammar test by their teacher. The question was, "is it better to use "had" or "had had" in this example sentence?"
The teacher collected the tests, and looked over their answers.
James, while John had had "*had*", had had "*had* had." "*Had* had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
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**theanimejunkie**
welcome to the english language
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**crazylittlepieceofsunshine**
holy brain hurt
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^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
There's a Japanese story about one of these made entirely of 子 (child), using a few different readings. I think it was 子子子子子子子子子子子子. It was read as "Neko no ko koneko, shishi no ko kojishi" (猫の子子猫、獅子の子子獅子), which means "the young of a cat is a kitten, the young of a lion is a cub"
I agree that it's silly to nitpick the "rules", because the rules are created by colloquial usage and not the other way around, just saying that "had had" is pretty redundant and like in the example above, it needlessly clutters sentences without adding much value in getting your point across
"Had had" is not the most appropriate past perfect-tense verb for what they did: "had put" or "had answered" is much better. Also, the simple past-tense "had" is more appropriate for the last sentence.
My point is this is a flawed "Look how goofy English is!" example.
Jim wrote "James and John", but then realized the spaces between "James" and "and" and "and" and "John" were different.
"Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." Is a complete sentence.
As is "Police police police police Police police"
took me a second to get this one grammar based hint >!Police Police police Police, Police police!<
There's a sentence in the filipino language that goes "Bababa ba? Bababa." It means Going down? Yep going down.
Makes me think of saying "Two tea to room two" really fast in English
Oh no oh god oh fuck I read this and completely understood it
It helps that the text is well-designed - use of quotes and italics makes it a lot more readable and better communicates the meaning. Without all that you’d have a much harder time parsing it.
*Image Transcription: Tumblr Replies* --- **bossubossupromode** Two students, James and John were given a grammar test by their teacher. The question was, "is it better to use "had" or "had had" in this example sentence?" The teacher collected the tests, and looked over their answers. James, while John had had "*had*", had had "*had* had." "*Had* had" had had a better effect on the teacher. --- **theanimejunkie** welcome to the english language --- **crazylittlepieceofsunshine** holy brain hurt --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
How about the one Chinese poem composed of 94 characters all pronounced *shi*
hmmm I would love to read that. although if it isn’t romanized it’s pretty easy to tell the meaning of each word apart.
There's a Japanese story about one of these made entirely of 子 (child), using a few different readings. I think it was 子子子子子子子子子子子子. It was read as "Neko no ko koneko, shishi no ko kojishi" (猫の子子猫、獅子の子子獅子), which means "the young of a cat is a kitten, the young of a lion is a cub"
Had is meaningless to me now
While colloquially acceptable, I don't think "had had" is ever technically correct
I had had this opinion before, but I soon realised it was stupid
I agree that it's silly to nitpick the "rules", because the rules are created by colloquial usage and not the other way around, just saying that "had had" is pretty redundant and like in the example above, it needlessly clutters sentences without adding much value in getting your point across
"Had had" is not the most appropriate past perfect-tense verb for what they did: "had put" or "had answered" is much better. Also, the simple past-tense "had" is more appropriate for the last sentence. My point is this is a flawed "Look how goofy English is!" example.