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Sat 21 Jul, 2007 10:41 am
The play ended. The audience left quickly.
When the play ended/had ended, the audience left quickly.
In joining the sentences in bold, should I use 'ended' or 'had ended'?
Many thanks.
In this context, "ended" is better. If you're narrating a sequence of events in a more or less linear manner, it is better to keep everything in the same (simple past) tense. "Had ended" would be more appropriate if you were specifically trying to emphasize that one event is more distantly in the past than another: "The play had ended, but the party was just beginning."
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