Blog Marco

I was reading some news and the article had the "had had" phrase in there... Looked it up this strange little snippet of the English language on Google and it had about 8 million pages which used the phrase. Some examples of "had had" usage are: "Mum had had three drink-driving charges before 10am"; "I've had had blood clots before with my period but this time it was hard not jello feeling?"

Some fellow even wrote a stupid riddle about it:

"Ann while Bob had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher."

This "Had had" puzzle requires correct punctuation (i.e. using commas, full stops and quotation marks) to make any sense. Answer at the end of this blog entry.

Here's what some people had to say about "had had": It is the is pluperfect of "to have". "He had had a bad day." - In that sentence: "He had had a bad day" indicates that the experience occurred (and was completed) prior to another experience under discussion. As compared to: "He had a bad day" which talks about the type of day the person experienced.

Now have a read of this and ponder... "Smith and Jones were given six letters, AADDHH, and asked to form a verb using as many letters as possible. Smith wrote HAD. Jones wrote HAD HAD. The examiner went for Jones."

This doesn't make any sense to me but here is the answer to the riddle above: "Ann, while Bob had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had a better effect on the teacher."

"It has to do with grammar. "Had had" is the past participle (I believe) and Bob had [written] the wrong answer on his HW assignment (or whatever), which was "had". Ann had [written] the correct answer, which was "had had". Thus, While Bob had had "had" [on his paper], Ann had had "had had" on her paper. The fact that Ann had "had had" on her paper made the teacher happy."