Why is "had had" used and when should it be used?

Question

You know when you're reading a book, and it's like "Susie had had a crush on Tommy before.."

When I read over something with "had had" I don't know what it's suppose to do with the sentence, can someone explain why it is used, and WHEN should I use it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Mike Y really had the best answer, but it needs one small change:  

Had had = past perfect of the verb 'to have'.

The story itself is in past tense, so things that happend before the events in the story are in the past perfect tense. (I'm making up this example:)

In the story (which is in the past tense), Susie had a crush on Tommy.  Before the story began, she had had a crush on Billy.

Other examples:

Today (Saturday), I drink coffee. On Friday, I drank coffee. Before I drank coffee on Friday, I had drunk coffee on Thursday.

Answer 2

Had had = past participle of the verb 'to have'.

The story itself is in past tense, and before the events in the story, Susie had a crush on Tommy.

Other examples:

Today (Saturday), I drink coffee.  On Friday, I drank coffee.  Before I drank coffee on Friday, I had drunk coffee on Thursday.

Edit: Oops.  You're right, Mamie.  Only the second had is the participle.  Had + [past participle] = past perfect.

It's not frustrating at all.  It's usually refreshing for stuffy grammarians to see other people want to know the same things. =P  BUT I must go back to my paper soon, so yeah just briefly:

Aux verbs are helping verbs.  They add meaning to the main verb, thus changing the type of sentence (In 'I -could- run', obviously adding -could- changes the meaning).

Verbs come in 4 forms: base (the verb by itself), past, past participle (verb + ed for regular verbs, change in spelling for irregular), and present participle (verb + ing).  Participles have tons of uses, one of which is forming perfect tenses.  So yeah, past perfect just means the past in the past.

Answer 3

Up until lunchtime, he had not eaten anything.

had - as auxiliary + not eaten - eaten as past participle - had not eaten

Up until lunchtime, he had had nothing to eat.

had - auxiliary verb in the past to form the past perfect - + had - past participle - to form the past perfect.

The past form of "have" which is "had" is functioning as an auxiliary in order to form the past perfect with the past participle of "have" which is "had".

had/auxiliary + had/past particple = had had - past perfect aspect of the verb "to have".

Example: "He had had a bad day."

In that sentence, "He had a bad day" talks about the type of day the person experienced. "He had had a bad day" indicates that the experience occurred (and was completed) prior to another experience under discussion.

Had had is the past perfect form of have when it is used as a main verb to describe our experiences and actions. We use the past perfect when we are talking about the past and want to refer back to an earlier past time, Madiini. In these examples, note the use of before, after, already and by the time as a trigger for the past perfect. Note also that the contracted form of had had is 'd had:



She'd had a lot to drink and wasn't capable of walking home by herself.



After he'd had a good night's sleep, he felt much better.



She sacked him before he had had a chance to explain his behaviour.



By the time he was twenty he'd already had four different jobs.



I'd already had a word with Joan about re-locating to Manchester and now she's had time to think about it, she quite likes the idea.

Answer 4

It is used to state that someone possessed something in the past. So by saying that Susie had had a crush on Tommy, she simply had a crush on him in the past.