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Can someone please change the title to say "has donated", since "had donated" implies he is dead. Or that the took the money back.

dfxm12 14y ago
That's not what the pluperfect tense implies in English. It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past [1]. There is still some ambiguity that could lead a reader to infer that Gates is finished donating money. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English
- rednukleus 14y ago
  To me it implies that the event took place prior to the end of his lifetime, which implies that his lifetime has ended. "Has donated" carries the correct meaning and is unambiguous.
- jere 14y ago
  >It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past True, but that implies that there exists such a moment with particular significance. Otherwise, you wouldn't use that tense. In other words, it leaves you thinking Bill Gates donated 36 billion dollars before X, where X is his death, an alien invasion, the collapse of the dollar, etc. I don't know if there is a rule of thumb as to what tense to use, but "had donated" in this context feels plain wrong. That kind of dissonance is captured perfectly by this Mitch Hedberg quote: >I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
  - dfxm12 14y ago
    Like I said, "had donated" is ambiguous, however, inferring that this must mean Bill Gates either died or gave the donated money back is more than a bit of a stretch.
    - raverbashing 14y ago
      Well, yes, it's a bitch of a stretch because of our context, still the phrase is ambiguous, so it's better with 'has' The phrase certainly can be fixed if it refers to some event like 'Bill Gates had donated 36 billion before he left Microsoft'
- mortenjorck 14y ago
  And absent of any intent on the speaker's part to contextualize vis-à-vis this prior moment in the past, it is the wrong tense.
- Osmium 14y ago
  Just to reiterate the other comments, "had" is wrong because you included "in his lifetime" to contextualise it -- this implies the period of time known as his "lifetime" is in the past, which is wrong because he is still alive, and so "had" is incorrect. If one had said "Bill Gates had donated over $x [before he was 55]" it would be fine.
- tmrggns 14y ago
  In languages English is derived from, there is also the presence of an "aspect" to a verb, which denotes when a verb ends. We carry this through in English with the difference between "had donated" "donated" and "was donating", where the action is either completed in the past, ambiguous, or could be ongoing. I don't know if this is the "proper" way to talk about it in terms of English grammar, since I'm not sure there is such a thing for such a diverse language, but it is in Ancient Greek and Latin. Your link does a good job for people who are mixing up the auxiliary verb "had" which can be a main verb, "to have" but is not in this case. The main action here relates to donating, not having.

dfxm12 14y ago

That's not what the pluperfect tense implies in English. It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past [1]. There is still some ambiguity that could lead a reader to infer that Gates is finished donating money. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English

rednukleus 14y ago
To me it implies that the event took place prior to the end of his lifetime, which implies that his lifetime has ended. "Has donated" carries the correct meaning and is unambiguous.
jere 14y ago
>It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past True, but that implies that there exists such a moment with particular significance. Otherwise, you wouldn't use that tense. In other words, it leaves you thinking Bill Gates donated 36 billion dollars before X, where X is his death, an alien invasion, the collapse of the dollar, etc. I don't know if there is a rule of thumb as to what tense to use, but "had donated" in this context feels plain wrong. That kind of dissonance is captured perfectly by this Mitch Hedberg quote: >I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
- dfxm12 14y ago
  Like I said, "had donated" is ambiguous, however, inferring that this must mean Bill Gates either died or gave the donated money back is more than a bit of a stretch.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    Well, yes, it's a bitch of a stretch because of our context, still the phrase is ambiguous, so it's better with 'has' The phrase certainly can be fixed if it refers to some event like 'Bill Gates had donated 36 billion before he left Microsoft'
mortenjorck 14y ago
And absent of any intent on the speaker's part to contextualize vis-à-vis this prior moment in the past, it is the wrong tense.
Osmium 14y ago
Just to reiterate the other comments, "had" is wrong because you included "in his lifetime" to contextualise it -- this implies the period of time known as his "lifetime" is in the past, which is wrong because he is still alive, and so "had" is incorrect. If one had said "Bill Gates had donated over $x [before he was 55]" it would be fine.
tmrggns 14y ago
In languages English is derived from, there is also the presence of an "aspect" to a verb, which denotes when a verb ends. We carry this through in English with the difference between "had donated" "donated" and "was donating", where the action is either completed in the past, ambiguous, or could be ongoing. I don't know if this is the "proper" way to talk about it in terms of English grammar, since I'm not sure there is such a thing for such a diverse language, but it is in Ancient Greek and Latin. Your link does a good job for people who are mixing up the auxiliary verb "had" which can be a main verb, "to have" but is not in this case. The main action here relates to donating, not having.