Sentence Correction

Question

Hello Sir,

Please tell me what difference the word "having been" makes in these two sentences written below

1. Having been beaten by Tyson, Geoffrey decided to give up boxing.

2. Beaten by Tyson, Geoffrey decided to give up boxing.

as both sentences convey similar ideas.

Neha

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Neha, I'm happy to respond :-)

These two are similar in meaning, and the distinction is something I have never seen tested on the GMAT. Ordinarily, the present and past participles reflect the tense of the main verb. When we use an ordinary participle, as in: Beaten by Tyson, Geoffrey decided to give up boxing . then we are implying that the action of "beating" and the action of "giving up" occurred around the same time --- in other words, there is nothing meaningful about any time separating those two events. Emphasizing any difference in time does not matter to the author. By contrast, if a writer uses the perfect participle, " having been beaten ," then the writer is being very clear about the fact that the two actions occurred at different times and that there is something significant about this time difference. Having been beaten by Tyson, Geoffrey decided to give up boxing . In this sentence, there's a clear sequence of events. First, the fight happened, the "beating." Then, later, at a separate time, Geoffrey made his decision and "gave up." In this particular sentence, it's not clear why it would be important to emphasize the time separation. In some contexts, the time situation might be crucial, but here, it's not obvious to me that the time distinction would really matter to anyone. Does this make sense? Mike :-)

neha338 · Answer

Could I say that
In first sentence, we have nothing to do with sequence of events. Our motive is to say that Geoffrey gave up boxing after his beating. We are focused only on action as you said, time is irrelevant here. 
But I am not getting you saying"beating" and the action of "giving up" occurred around the same time. It seems beating occurred earlier to deciding and then to giving up boxing. But we are not concerned of this sequencing here in this sentence.

While in 2nd sentence, we are equally concerned of the way events have taken place.

Have I understood the concept, Mike?
I am not confident. Please provide me some example where sequence of events are equally important with use of " having been". I asked the question because GMAT emphasises on brevity of sentence.

Neha

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear neha338 , My friend, we are giving a lot of attention here to subtleties that the GMAT does not test. The GMAT is NOT ever going to have a split that involves choosing an ordinary participle vs. a perfect participle. If there's a perfect participle in the sentence, chances are very good that it will appear in all five answer choices. I'll also say that this sentence is not the best example. I don't know where you found this sentence. If you are really curious about this, I would recommend hunting through the OG and other official material, finding a sentence with a perfect participle, and then we can discuss it. In this sentence, of course, the "beating" happens before the "giving up" --- the former happens earlier and causes the latter. The cause-effect relationship is already 100% clear from context. That's precisely why there's no compelling reason to emphasize the time sequence. It's "not important" to emphasize because we can already figure out the time relationships from the logical relationship of the events. Use of the perfect participle is over-the-top --- it emphasizes something we already know. We already know from logic, from the context, that the fight had to happen before the decision to give up, so we don't need the extra clarification about time that the perfect participle provides. Once again, if you really want to get clear on this, then hunt for sentences that use the perfect participle Look in the OG and official material. You can also look in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal . If you find a sentence in which this structure is used, and you don't understand why it's used, then post it here and we can discuss it. Mike :-)

neha338 · Answer

Mike,
Given below is a sentence from NYT and I think after going through some more text, I have my concept clear.

Having been indoctrinated for decades to view the American government with suspicion and resentment  , Cubans across the island were mesmerized by a week that was as remarkable for some of the things that happened as it was for those that did not.

I think the writer has in order to clarify the time lag has used 'having been' form.

Tell me one simple thing, when participles take the tense of verb, as we already know, how perfect continuous tenses has verb-ing form swinging between two tenses?

Neha

mikemcgarry · Answer

First of all, yes, in that sentence from the NYT, " Cubans . . . were mesmerized " refers to a recent action that stands in contrast to an earlier situation. The use of the perfect participle very effective creates the contrast between earlier events (1950s - 1990s) to more recent (post 2010) events. It was very important to create the sense of time difference between the earlier historical situation and how it stands in stark contrast to recent events, and the writer's use of the perfect participle brilliant conveys this. That is a truly brilliant sentence at a number of levels --- arguably, something like this could be the OA on a GMAT SC question. Another example of high quality writing in the NY Times! Now, as to your "one simple thing" --- it's not so simple, because you are not using correct terminology. NEVER talk about the " verb-ing form " --- that's a term used by people who know nothing about grammar. The -ing ending for a verb can denote one of three things: 1) the present participle https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/participl ... -the-gmat/ 2) the gerund https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gram ... d-phrases/ 3) a verb in the present progressive tense https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-verbs ... ive-tense/ For a discussion of how to tell the difference, see: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/the-ing-form-of-a-verb/ Read those blogs, learn the proper terminology, and you still have your question, ask it again with correct terminology. Does this make sense? Mike :-)

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