Can I really say 'she had used to' do something? I want to make it clear it's the pluperfect - not that she used to but that she had used to, previosuly. But it sounds all wrong!

Can anyone please advise?

Rosy

I think you can, technically, but to my ears it sounds quite ugly. I think it depends what you are going for - if you are writing a character who was a stickler for correct grammar, this would fit. Otherwise, I'd write it like this:

In the past, she had often visited the corner shop.

or

Before Denny died, she'd dyed her hair every week.

or

Until the supermarket exploded, April had went there every day.

or if you need more emphasis and less description:

April used to smoke, but she'd stopped now.

or She did eat cream-cakes regularly, but the surgery prevented all that frippery these days.

Hmmm. It's not the fact that it is a while ago and has stopped - that's clear even from 'used to' - I just want that extra layer of previousness, if yu see what I mean.

Do you think it's any less clunky if I shorten it to "she'd used to"?

Urg.

R x

Hi

it still sounds a bit dodgy to me - and I think the meanings are quite close to each other anyway? I mean, that the reason the phrase sounds clumsy is because we don't hear it every day, and the reason we don't hear it every day is because it isn't very often we need such fine shades of previousness.

But out of the two, she'd used to does sound better.

It's a nightmare, isn't it? My novel was past tense, with flash backs. I'd do the first two or three lines of any flash back scene like this:

Will had walked into the bedroom. He'd had blonde hair, then, and had been fond of swishing it about while he spoke.

And then just drop into usual past tense:

It was something I couldn't stand - made me want to go and get the scissors and cut his fringe off.

I think the first two lines were enough to drop the reader into the past-past, but I couldn't have kept it up for the length of the whole flashback, so I dropped it as soon as the timescale was established.

I think it works - no-one has complained so far, and i avoided the dreaded 'had had'.

Let me know what you decide.

Rosy, could you give us a snippet of the sentence, so we can get a feel for it?
Susiex

I don't think you can - it sounds completely illiterate, to me. I'd agree with Jenn that you only need the first couple of sentences to be in pluperfect.

Can you use a word like 'before' or 'once I used to' or one of those? As in Jenn's example:

'Before the surgery, she used to eat cream cakes a lot, after it, she couldn't face them.'

Emma

Similar to Emma's 'Once' example, I might be tempted to emphasise it a bit more strongly by saying something like: 'Once upon a time she would have done that, but not now.'


- NaomiM

It's not in a flashback or anything - just someone talking about what someone used to do, and what she'd used to do before that. I think you are all right, it wounds weird. I need to use another verb instead - 'had been in the habit of' or summat.

Thanks, everyone.

R x

Rosy - forget it. 'She had used' to sounds too nineteen forties for words! Your literate readers (and they're the only people reading your book) will know what you mean and the grammar books will tell you you don;t need the pluperfect with certain verbs - to be;to know; to sense; to smell - those sensory ones. 'Had used to' is just too clumsy.

"She used to blow-dry her hair herself, and before that she'd always gone to the hairdryers."
Would this kind of thing work in your context?
Susiex

<Added>

hairdryers? that's hairdressers!

She had used to do something? Well, she didn't ought to have done...

I think that summarises the problem, really. Regardless of grammar, it sounds clunkily old-fashioned. Though there is a place for clunkily old-fashioned.

LOL, RJH! OK, OK, I give in!

R x

My grammar's shite! - But that sounds ugly!

Can't you use - originally she'd or even initially.

But what do I know? I don't know what 'pluperfect' means.

Don't explain - Google's my friend.