had

gulyasrobi "had" in Hungarian means: army Aug 1, 2012

bilby Wot, couldn't get his head around a pretty obvious distinction between perfective and imperfective verbs? Poor Marko. Apr 13, 2010

milosrdenstvi "What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? Had is had, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going to make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself."

"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads."

"How do you make it out?"

"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more prolonged and indefinitely continuous way."

'Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If I have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of thing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is so delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't have this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--"

From Mark Twain's Italian with Grammar Apr 13, 2010

plethora John, you slack bastard, leave some fairy cakes for the rest of us! Aug 5, 2008

qroqqa The maximum sequence achievable using only uses is three: John had eaten more fairy cakes than Mary had had, had anyone stopped to count. It is possible (with a bit of grammatical legerdemain) that this could be exceeded in a sentence using the token 'that' (q.v.). Aug 5, 2008

skipvia The more you say this word, the stranger it sounds. Kind of like "egg." Oct 4, 2007

oroboros Y'all BEEN had! ;oD Sep 9, 2007

reesetee Mercy! Sep 9, 2007

seanahan The fact that Oroboros, where Seanahan had had "had had "had had", had had "had", had had" had had "had had "had had", had had "had", had had", was terribly confusing. Really, we could play this game all night. Sep 9, 2007

oroboros "I'm sorry, but I can't resist. The 'had had' sentence (John, where Mary
had had "had" had had "had.") takes advantage of the use/mention
distinction. Of course, you can mention other examples of mentioning, so
you can create infinitely long sentences. Mark, where I had had "had had
'had' had had 'had'" had had " had 'had' had had 'had.'"; extend this for
as long as you like. Points off for incorrect punctuation."

--Will Fitzgerald--Message 4 under "Parsing Challenges"

P.S., Messages 1-3 by others are also fun. Sep 8, 2007

uselessness That's awesome! Jan 28, 2007

seanahan The fact that John, where Joe had had "had had", had had "had", had had a greater effect.

9 is the most I've ever heard. Jan 28, 2007