I’m in doubt whether it is correct to use Past Perfect in sentences starting with “Until recently”, such as in this phrase: Until recently, I hadn’t flown by planes.
OR I hadn’t flown on planes until recently when I had no option but fly for business to our clients who are several thousand miles away
In my view, that’s ok because I’m talking about a period of time (the whole life) before an event in the past, which is referred to by “until recently”. However, I did a bit of reseach on Google and found out that in similar cases either Present Perfect or Past Simple is used:
* Up until recently that has been our problem and we’ve not been able to …
* Until now, the biggest complaints about eating tuna right out of a can have been that it doesn’t have much taste, or it smells like cat food.
* Until recently, she did voluntarily work at her local school.
* The questions are short and simple, but they are profound, and until recently they were almost unanswerable.
Your help in clarifying this issue would be very much appreciated
The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.
1)If I say 'Up until now I had thought X" that has the implication that I no longer think X.
2)UNTIL NOW, JONES HAD BEEN STEADFAST IN DOPING DENIALS - It is correct. It means that moments ago (a point in past time), she finally admitted to doping. Before that, she had always denied that she was using drugs. It is the same grammatical construction as “Until 2007, he had been living in New York”
3)We haven’t eaten at home until recently… not wrong, but not nice.
We didn’t eat at home until recently… nothing wrong with it.
We hadn’t eaten at home until recently… better.
Another case of “forget the rules”. In English it’s what sounds right that is right- you can’t learn this stuff from a book.
4)‘Recently’ can appear with either verb form, but more commonly with the present perfect because the word itself relates the past to the present moment. ‘Recently’ has no rule independent of the guidelines for using the two verb forms. /Mr. Micawber/
From different sorces, as you can see. Personally I like the idea of “what sounds right that is right”.
Regards.
