Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

event 1

event 2

Then she 

went out and she phoned my brother.

event 1

event 2

Then she 

phoned my brother and she went out.

If the real sequence of events is different from the word order of the sentence, then

this must be indicated explicitly (e.g. by a temporal conjunction):

event 2

event 1

She 

identified herself 

when

she 

answered the phone. 

(she answered the phone first, then identified herself)

However, events may also be understood as simultaneous:

I wasn’t satisfied so I 

wrote to them and complained. 

(the writing of the letter and the complaining were one and the same thing)

When the past simple is used to refer to habitual events, the meaning is similar to

used to

:

We 

did a lot of acting at school. 

(or: We used to do a lot of acting at school.)

Û

402 Used to and would

610 | Past time

Cambridge Grammar of English

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