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

Deletion
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)

this has got to be one of the worst articles on here, alog with buffalo (*6). i vote deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.74.188 (talk) 18:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * I agree, we need this article 2600:4040:9A4B:3E00:B45D:B02:B5BE:98C6 (talk) 19:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Hang on please guys. There is no reason to delete this article if you just look it at. It is a solution for a grammatical anomaly where the word "had" can be used 11 times in a row while still making sense and being grammatically correct. The reason for having this page here is that I came upon this sentence in "List of Linguistic Example Sentences" and could not figure it out. Unlike other example sentences, this one had no explanation. I searched for a solution on Google, and put the solution into Wikipedia so as to facilitate anyone else's learning who may also have been stumped by the sentence. It's a short article because that is all there is to it. I cite my source, and I link into and out of the page that originally had confused me. This page is well within Wikipedia's standards and coincides with its purpose of allowing people to share what they know in order to help others learn. I'm no admin, but I strongly ask that you do not delete it again. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timt1006 (talk • contribs) 13:42, 8 December 2007


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

"Wikipedia isn't a teaching aid" WTF?! Have I being using it wrong these past 5 years?!78.149.87.145 (talk) 12:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * 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)

I don't seem to be able to edit the main article, but I would like it pointed out that if the subject of this article were to be considered grammatically valid, then it to could have been used in a school English paper, so we would start out with "James while John had had had had..." where the full string of 'had's would replace his original "had had", since he may very well have used the subject sentence in his paper. This could be multiplied ad nauseum with each correct citation becoming part of the larger sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tobiah (talk • contribs) 03:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * 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)

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.170.51.135.191 (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Cquote to quote
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)

mergers
Per the consensus at the AfD, we should now discuss where to merge this article. The feeling was that a new article should be created covering all these similar articles, but a title and so forth was not agreed on. I have tagged several of the other articles with merge tags that point here in order to centralize the discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * While there does seem to be a consensus to keep, I think that the idea to merge has less weight behind it. Some people prefer merging, others merely suggest it, others oppose it. I personally don't think a merge is needed. I certainly don't think That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is should be merged. They are similar but different topics. Chillum  23:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about merging the other articles, but the AfD was closed as "Keep but Merge" and that does seem to accurately reflect the debate. Therefore, this discussion is not about whether this article should be merged but rather where to merge it to and if the other "repeating word sentence" examples should be merged there as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That is one interpretation of the closing, he actually said "preferably merge", a far cry from "must merge". I will ask the closing admin if he meant to require merging. Regardless of the AfD, I see no harm in further discussion of what we should do. Chillum  23:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I certainly don't think the Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo article should be merged into this one either; they are only superficially related, if that. Now, if we had an article about
 * Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and and and and and Chips in my 'Fish and Chips' sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
 * I would agree that it ought to be merged with this one ;-) Shreevatsa (talk) 01:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I was involved in the AfD. My suggestion is to take List of linguistic example sentences, move it to Linguistic example sentences and then use it to create an article about the topic including notable examples and briefly discussing them. Few, if any, of them are important enough to deserve a separate article. Drawn Some (talk) 03:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the conclusion we eventually came to, at the AfD, was merge this to Repetition (syntax).— S Marshall  Talk / Cont  03:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, I think this sounds ok to me. Basket of Puppies  03:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I was also involved in the AfD. I'd say Drawn Some's suggestion is the best so far, moving it all to Linguistic example sentences and expanding individual entries within the larger article, preferably illustrating what it purports to teach. -- Blue Squadron  Raven  03:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand that, but I feel that what all of the examples purport to teach is the subject of syntactic repetition. I feel that articles should be about what the sources say, and in this case the best sources known are Uncle G's copy of a Jean Aitchison book, plus Fowler's. Each of these treats the basic subject of syntactic repetition under the heading of "repetition". On the other hand, if we write an article on Linguistic example sentences, then the concern is that nobody has a source for the article because no reliable source talks about linguistic example sentences.  Such an article would therefore fail WP:SYN even if every individual statement within it were sourced. Thus I feel that compliance with Wikipedia's core policies requires that the article be called some variant of Repetition.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  07:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, the examples at List of linguistic example sentences do not all demonstrate syntactic repetition; in fact, almost none of them do. Claiming that all the articles about example sentences are simply articles about syntactic repetition, is just wrong. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 06:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I have been asked to clarify my closure here. My reading of the AfD was that there were a number of differing opinions (obviously), ranging from outright keep to outright delete, but that the most obvious one, with considerable support, seemed to be to merge this info together with similar articles. However, since theer was not (yet) agreement on what the new article should be called, or which articles could be merged in it. I could hardly close it as "must be merged" when such agreement wasn't yet reached, but I do believe that an eventual merge would best reflect the spirit of the AfD and would best serve our readers as well. But if in the end no consensus can be found on this talk page, or the consensus is to keep this separate after all, then I will not protest this editorial decision. Fram (talk) 06:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clarification. Chillum  14:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As a voter from the orginial AFD discussion, I'm going to have to agree with Marshall (again)-merge to Repetition (syntax). Cheers. 12:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding "move it to Linguistic example sentences," as I believe I said in the AfD, all sentences are linguistic example sentences. That title is therefore probably unnecessarily vague.

I strongly support the notion that had11, buffalo8 fish and5 chips et alia should be gathered as examples of Repetion rather than each given its own page. Since these examples seem to hinge on both syntactic structure and lexical ambiguity, I am less sold on (syntax), but certainly not opposed.

By the way, am I correct in thinking that the pages to be merged are: Had had had had had had had had had had had, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, and That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is? Will the new page also include "between fish and and and and and chips," which doesn't currently appear in Wikipedia? "Malo malo malo malo," which is analyzed at Latin mnemonics? "Shī Shì shí shī shǐ," which is at Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den? Cnilep (talk) 15:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just FYI, Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den cannot possibly be merged with any of these. It's not about repetition, it's about homophony and orthography; there aren't even repeated words in it. Any claim that it's an example of "syntactic repetition" is just a gross misunderstanding of Chinese. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 06:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

As the original author of "James while John had had had etc", I wholly support the merge to Repetition (syntax). All the articles about repetition link to one another anyways, and they describe different facets of the same phenomenon. By far the most informative section in "James while John had had etc." is the section citing Fowler's on chance word repetition. A full article on such a topic with notable examples from different languages would much better inform readers of a recurring anomaly in language, as opposed to amusing them with what might seem to be a freakish single occurrence. I support merging to Repetition (syntax) with the appropriate redirect pages. Timt1006 (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to move this article
Given the above discussion on merging, I propose we (1) move this article to Repetition (syntax), (2) write a short lead paragraph for the subject of repetition as it pertains to syntax, and (3) leave the rest of this article as is (for now) as one example of repetition in syntax. I don't think this is really something that needs a whole lot of discussion. If it turns out we were wrong, the article can always be moved again or refactored etc. So, all in favor of moving to Repetition (syntax) and adding a new lead, say Aye. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  17:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Aye.— S Marshall  Talk / Cont  18:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Do it. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Aye. Cnilep (talk) 19:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Aye. Shreevatsa (talk) 20:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) Aye. Much better than my suggestion, this is why it was left to the specialists at the AfD! Drawn Some (talk) 22:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 6) Yup. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 7) Aye Aye Captain. Timt1006 (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 8) Strong Support!!! The Junk Police (reports|works) 06:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 9) Johnny come lately also supports S Marshall's Repetition. Drmies (talk) 22:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Question: What does this mean for the other articles? Shreevatsa (talk) 20:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Means we haven't decided. Probably when the new page has been created, we'll use a variant of merge on each of the other pages to suggest merging them, but we can discuss that on the new talk page.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  21:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I agree, and changed my reply above. But of course we're not voting :) Shreevatsa (talk) 22:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to come into this so late, but I oppose the merge. This article isn't about repetition in general, it's about a specific example sentence that is relatively well-known and cited; there are very few instances of "repetition" that can rival this. There are plenty of articles on specific example sentences; see List of linguistic example sentences (to be honest, I was surprised that "the horse raced past the barn fell" didn't have its own article; it's just a redirect). From my skim of this article, this sentence is used and mentioned enough that we can afford to have an article on the sentence itself, not just "repetition" in general. (To be honest, I don't even know what Repetition (syntax) would entail, and to be honest I'm not even sure it's a serious field of study within syntax or psycholinguistics; from the AfD I only see one real article that discusses it, which is nothing compared to garden paths, center embedding, subject & object relatives, reduced relatives, and other syntactic phenomena that have spawned famous example sentences.) r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 21:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that any of these articles that can show their specific phrase being discussed by multiple independent source warrant their own article. A single article that attempts to combine all these sentences into a single subject runs the risk of creating original research through novel synthesis of existing sources. Chillum  21:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The title of this article seems to me to be a preposterously unlikely search term. It's also a short article that doesnt' seem likely to be expanded. There seems to be a strong majority for including the content in a broader Repetition (syntax), or similar, article. What would the disadvantages be? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The things I listed above, and a little bit in the above section: that "syntactic repetition" is, as far as I know, not a real field of study and I only see the one or two papers that discuss it, and that the numerous phenomena/example sentences that people above are suggesting to merge into a "repetition" article are actually not illustrations of the same thing. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 19:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, but the present title is a preposterously unlikely search term. Are there similar "illustrations" that are related? Is there an article name where they can be included so readers will find them? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not a likely search term per se, but under its old title it was linked from other articles (and the old title was a more likely search term than this, since it was the actual sentence and not just a part of it...if I had been around during the recent AfD I certainly would have opposed the move to the present title). It can also be categorized better than it currently is, which will help with locating it.  The bottom line is, though, no matter how "likely" the search term is, the subject of this article is that sentence, and the article should share the title.  There are plenty of other articles that are not likely search terms (especially list-type articles, disambiguated articles, and other kinds of cross-categorizations) but are named as such because that's what they are about.
 * And, as I said above, if there is anything that sentences like this, "fish and and and and and chips," and "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" have in common, it's lexical ambiguity&mdash;that's what the illustrate, and the "repetition" you see in them arises entirely from lexical factors. Really, there is absolutely nothing "syntactic" about them. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 20:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Lexical ambiguity? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think there's too much here to stick in that article, and this topic is differentiated enough. It's not just lexical ambiguity, but it's a certain kind of lexical ambiguity, in a certain context, that gives rise to repetivie-looking sentences (as opposed to more classical lexical ambiguity, which is usually demonstrated with normal-looking sentences that happen to have two interpretations because of one ambiguous word).  The main point is that this article isn't about lexical ambiguity, it's about the specific sentence, which (judging from the reference list) seems to have garnered enough coverage to be worthy of an article here. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 00:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not lexically ambiguous, even though there are two "had"s in there. It's the sheer repetition of the word that creates the puzzle. I like the Repetition (syntax) idea, and, like the Linguist above said, we can always move it back or somewhere else. BTW, S, I just got Fowler in, first edition--what a ride! That's not how I teach grammar, haha. Drmies (talk) 22:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is lexically ambiguous&mdash;there's had the auxiliary verb, had meaning "to possess", had as an indexical, and had as part of the idiomatic expression "have an effect on...". The 'sheer repetition' is only possible because of the polysemy of had. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 22:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What do I know. Drmies (talk) 23:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ... ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I take that as an admission that while it is not ambiguous to Drmies, it may in fact be ambiguous to others. In any case if the ambiguity is not clearly established, we should probably find some other property to use in describing it. -<span style="font:bold 10px Verdana;display:inline;border:#000066 1px solid;background-color:#ECF1F7;padding:0 4px 0 4px;">moritheil Talk 23:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if Drmies (or anyone else here, for that matter) notices the ambiguity. The fact of the matter is, lexical ambiguity is the specific linguistic phenomenon that gives rise to these sentences, nuff said. It's not a matter of what WP editors think it is; it just is. It's very clearly established. <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 01:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Someone linked this article to me as being something interesting, and it's no one participating in this discussion. Rjanag makes a convincing article. I don't understand why this article has been renamed as it has, to just a series of hads. It seems from the sources that the article is notable enough as a standalone. As such, it seems like it would be a better idea to move back to the previous title and redirect alternative titles, including the current. It may seem like an implausible search term, but if someone comes across this sentence and wants to get further information on it, chances are high that they'll cut and paste the sentence, so it's not that implausible. لenna vecia  21:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems to me like having an article on She sells sea shells by the sea shore rather than including the information in tongue twisters where I suspect more people find it (and where the tongue twisters themselves can be redirected). I would like to see the same done with this article, but between calling it had had had had had had had had and Whatever it was called before had had had had had had had had had I have no preference. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "She sells sea shells by the sea shore" and others like it have been given a name ("tongue twisters"), and are all examples of the same thing, but these sentences do not go by any such name (and indeed, they are not even examples of the same thing, as argued by rʨanaɢ above). Imagine if "she sells sea shells on the sea shore" was the only known tongue-twister: we would have had it as an article. Shreevatsa (talk) 02:56, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Is it a sentence?
The article calls it a sentence. I posit that in order to be a sentence this would need at least one comma or semicolon. Discuss.--87.162.16.125 (talk) 16:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, obviously. But in spoken language there aren't punctuation marks. Almost every famous psycholinguistic sentence like this has assumed punctuation marks. There is nothing to discuss. <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 16:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. You just discussed it. (Also it's true, it needs punctuation between the two parts to be correct.) --84.63.185.124 (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's why the prefix to this little gem is, "PUNCTUATE THIS SENTENCE!" Duh! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments like the previous one that intend to belittle another are uncivil and uncalled for. Please review the Talk page guidelines, and also How to be civil.
 * [Climbing down from soapbox...]
 * And yet, this article implies that the "sentence" is "syntactically correct":
 * "It has also been used as an example of how complex language can get while still being syntactically correct."
 * I agree with the original poster – this was not a proper sentence until after it had had proper punctuation applied. I would argue that at a minimum, the semicolon and quotation marks are not optional. Thoughts?  Groll &tau;ech  ( talk ) 20:19, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Move back to original name
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. <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 17:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 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)

mis-matched quotation mark?
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)
 * Fixed. <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 03:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

fish and and and and and chips
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)


 * Are you referring to the Car Talk reference? Nothing in the text suggests that that is the first appearance of this example. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 15:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * 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)

Articulateness in explaining grammar

 * 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)

The Well of Lost Plots
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)
 * 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.   Groll &tau;ech  ( talk ) 20:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

It's incorrect because of the question mark at the end, which isn't in the James example. Correct: Had 'had had' had TGC’s approval? - The aux verb comes first, then the subject ('had had'), then the verb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.139.253.71 (talk) 14:02, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

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

Commas go inside of quotation marks
Not outside. Changed where appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:643:8401:DBA7:1111:D570:EC79:486F (talk) 19:36, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * That may be the rule in America, but not in Britain. Britons punctuate nested phrases logically (much like parentheses, brackets and braces), so if a quotation is logically within a clause or sentence, the clause comma or sentence period goes after the end-quotation-mark, i.e., in the logical place.

A Variant ... had had had ...
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)

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Using word substitution and some kind of process would help people understand better.
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)

The sentence isn't even correct.
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)

Actually, it is correct how it is. When you changed '"had had"' to '"had"' you just simplified it. I appreciate the concern about this page. ThePRoGaMErGD (talk) 18:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)


 * 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)


 * 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)


 * 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)

I've seen this extended by one 'had'.
The challenge is to format: james while john had had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher hed have had an a

...which has one more had than the one given here.


 * James, while John had had "had", had had "had had". Had "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher, he'd have had an "A".

I believe I saw this version in GAMES Magazine around twenty-five years ago. Is it worth inclusion? TricksterWolf (talk) 15:48, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * @TricksterWolf neat. Do you have a source for this longer version? DannyS712 (talk) 00:30, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Again, it was GAMES Magazine around twenty-five years ago.


 * Although I just realized something! It may be incorrect. For, "Had 'had had' had had...", I'm not sure you can have two 'had' at the end if you place a 'Had' at the start? It 'feels' right but I'm not sure it is technically correct (the best kind of correct). I'd need to defer to an expert. I've taken some linguistics courses but this one is past me. TricksterWolf (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is correct, because the new had is replacing another, which is then kept. &#8213; Qwerfjkl  &#124; 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂 (please use&#32; on reply) 17:32, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * TricksterWolf, while Wikipedia had had [had had "had," had had "had had"; "had had" had had], had had [had had "had", had had "had had". Had "had had" had had]. [had had "had," had had "had had"; "had had" had had] had had a better effect on Qwerfjkl. Intrincantation (talk) 18:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * here's one with even more hads: James, while John had had "had had had", had had "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had"; "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had" had had "had had had" looking okay in comparison.
 * In this one, neither James nor John were correct, and James used way too many hads. IlSoupylI  ( talk ) 20:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Reinterpretation of the sentance
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. &#8213; Qwerfjkl  &#124; 𝕋𝔸𝕃𝕂 (please use&#32; on reply) 17:40, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

"James while John had a better effect on the teacher" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect James while John had a better effect on the teacher. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 11 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)