SC Guide, Chapter 3, Problem set question 9

[adam]

They never met an Australian before they met Crocodile Dundee

I agree this sounds better in the past perfect than in the given, simple past, form. But, according to the SC guide on pg 46, one exception to using the past perfect is when clauses are linked by "before" or "after", since they indicate the sequence of events clearly. Could you please clarify this exception - ie, when should we not use the past perfect to highlight an earlier action when the independent clause uses a verb in the past tense?

Thanks -

[Guest]

If I am not mistaken the exception in page 46 talks about the two events linked by before/after happen almost very close to each other or sequentially.

The logic here in this sentence to use past perfect is probably because of the lack of clear proximity between two events. In other words, one even started started way back in time and the other event started after it.

I had similar thoughts when I read this. I am not sure how far i am correct in my interpretation though

Stacey/Ron?

[StaceyKoprince]

Guest is right. If I say "I slipped on the ice before I broke my ankle" I wouldn't use past perfect for the slipped part - these things are pretty clearly happening one right after the other. For past perfect, the two events need to be separated in time.

If I don't use past perfect for the Crocodile Dundee sentence, it's not clear whether these two things are happening very closely together in time or at significantly separate points in time. I suppose it could be the case that you're trying to say they happen very closely together... but that doesn't make a lot of sense because the sentence says "never" - implying a pretty long period of time.

Still - the test will make it more clear than this. (For starters, you won't have to correct sentences on your own, which is a lot harder to do; you'll merely have to decide which of 5 given options is the right one.)