"never before been seen" vs. "never before seen"

Forums: English, Esl, Grammar, Learning English, Efl
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The former usage: formal; while the latter, informal. Both are clear in meaning.
Do you agree with me?

Context:

First human deaths from H7N9 bird flu
02 Apr 2013 | 09:21 BST | Posted by Rosie Mestel | Category: Health and medicine

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans, China reported on March 31. The two Shanghai men, 87 and 27 years old, contracted the H7N9 virus in February and died within 8 days. A 35-year-old woman from Anhui province, who contracted it in March, is now in critical condition.

More:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/04/first-human-deaths-from-h7n9-bird-flu.html

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Type: Question • Score: 9 • Views: 4,662 • Replies: 22

View best answer, chosen by oristarA

@oristarA,

"been" just seems like an extra word, to me.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

"been" just seems like an extra word, to me.

Yeah. But Nature magazine is a very formal scientific magazine (a leader in science community).

1 Reply

@oristarA,

Yes.

You wait. Somebody will show up to agree with you on the usage.

0 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans.

I would have written "Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu never seen before in humans.

The article was posted on a blog, not published in Nature. If it had been published in Nature, I'm pretty sure the referees would have asked for a native English speaker to revise the text, which was clearly not written by a native speaker.

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

The former usage: formal; while the latter, informal. Both are clear in meaning.
Do you agree with me?

no.

Quote:

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans, China reported on March 31.

never before been seen

that's simply bad writing

0 Replies

Quote:

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans, China reported on March 31.

This sentence looks to have been overlooked for editing.

The writer may have intended to write:

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu that has never been seen before in humans, China reported on March 31.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Infrablue wrote:

that has never been seen before

Certainly, but:

dictionary.com wrote:

ple·o·nasm
noun
1.
the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy

3 Replies

@timur,

timur wrote:

Infrablue wrote:
that has never been seen before

Certainly, but:

dictionary.com wrote:
ple·o·nasm
noun
1.
the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy

Well then, it certainly could have used extensive editing.

0 Replies

This looks suspiciously like hasty editing, as if the author had first written "that has never before been seen in humans" and then, seeking to reduce the number of words, decided to change it to "never before seen in humans" and missed deleting the word "been". I have made this sort of error myself, especially in emails at work when in a hurry.

0 Replies

@timur,

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans,

Infrablue wrote:

Quote:

that has never been seen before

That's not redundancy, that's emphasis.

1 Reply

@timur,

Now that I think about it, isn't the whole phrase incorrect? The present perfect affects the present, right? So if I say that something has never been seen, it should mean that until now, the time of speaking, it has not yet been seen. Perhaps the author should have written "Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu that had never been seen in humans."

2 Replies

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans,

Infrablue wrote:

Quote:
that has never been seen before

That's not redundancy, that's emphasis.

Good point.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

Yes, but JTT is not quoting the original passage. He is quoting Infrablue's rewrite.

0 Replies

@Doubtful,

Quote:

Now that I think about it, isn't the whole phrase incorrect? The present perfect affects the present, right?

Most certainly not incorrect, Doubtful. If it had been ungrammatical, it would have leaped out at all of the native speakers who came across it.

I'd say that this present perfect use is a combination of the PP of experience, the PP of continuation and the present perfect of current importance/current relevance.

The last one current relevance/importance can certainly include fully past and finished actions, eg. The president has been shot; Thatcher has died; ... .

Quote:

So if I say that something has never been seen, it should mean that until now, the time of speaking, it has not yet been seen. Perhaps the author should have written "Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu that had never been seen in humans."

The event that is described, this latest outbreak of bird flu hasn't ended. It's still in progress.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

The last one current relevance/importance can certainly include fully past and finished actions, eg. The president has been shot; Thatcher has died;

Yes, but those are things that cannot be undone: if you have been shot, you will always have been shot, even if they remove the bullet and you heal, right? Same with death: once dead, always dead.

1 Reply

@Doubtful,

Quote:

Yes, but those are things that cannot be undone: if you have been shot, you will always have been shot, even if they remove the bullet and you heal, right? Same with death: once dead, always dead.

That isn't the test for why we use the present perfect in this manner, Doubtful. It's often used by news media to create what news needs - a hot topic.

It's also used by native speakers to discuss finished actions that now have current relevance. Here's an example from a song by Bread.

Look what you've done

Bread

You have taken the heart of me
And left just a part of me,
And look, look, look what you've done.
Well, you took all the best of me,
So come get the rest of me,
And look back, finish what you've begun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVLUQujHJ8A

0 Replies

@Doubtful,

Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans,

============

Quote:

Now that I think about it, isn't the whole phrase incorrect? The present perfect affects the present, right? So if I say that something has never been seen, it should mean that until now, the time of speaking, it has not yet been seen. Perhaps the author should have written "Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu that had never been seen in humans."

You have raised a very intriguing idea here about using the past perfect, "had never been seen", Doubtful.

Certainly, it's a possibility. Now why would or wouldn't it be used in this situation? In what scenarios would it be used?

Same with,

Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu that was never seen in humans.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

Original: Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu never before been seen in humans, China reported on March 31.

============
I agree with Contrex that this was likely an edit wherein all the necessary words hadn't been deleted.

Active: Humans [doctors, etc] have never seen this type of bird flu [in humans].

Passive: Two men died after being infected with a type of bird flu [that has] never before been seen in humans, China reported on March 31.

Stripped to its bare essentials;

Passive: It hasn't been seen before by humans in humans.

0 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

Two men died after having been infected with a type of bird flu that was never seen in humans.

Thank you, JTT. Now that is very intriguing too. What is the difference between:

The boy was never seen fishing.
The boy has never been seen fishing.

Perhaps one comes from Latin (uses the auxiliary to be) and the other from German (uses the auxiliary to have)? This is just a wild, wild guess. I cannot see the difference between them. How about the affirmative:

The boy is seen fishing every day.
The boy has been seen fishing every day.

Is there a difference? I can't see it.

1 Reply

"never before been seen" vs. "never before seen"

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