<p>Quick writing question:</p>
<p>The sentence is "To those of us who had heard the principal of the high school talk about the budget, the news of the staff cuts was not surprising." </p>
<p>The sentence has no error. </p>
<p>BUT, I'm confused. Why is the sentence not "To those of us who HAVE heard the principal...?" Isn't those a plural subject or whatever? </p>
<p>help!</p>
<p>Have is a present perfect tense. </p>
<p>Ex:</p>
<p>“I have been doing something.”</p>
<p>Past tense:</p>
<p>“I was doing something.” “I had done something.”(Not sure if this is past perfect, but it is still past tense.)</p>
<p>The “was” in the second part of the sentence is in past tense, and the verb “to hear” from the first part has to agree with it.</p>
<p>EDIT: I think. I’m not entirely sure.</p>
<p>have is a different tense than had, not a plural version of it.
had is past perfect, have is present, with past/present being the time they heard the new of the staff cuts which happened in the past, so it is correct as had. If they were hearing of the staff cuts in the present and saying they are not currently suprised then it would be because they have heard the principal…blah blah blah. </p>
<p>I’m not good at explaining this so you might want to ask someone else lol.</p>
<p>yeah it’s past tense so it’s ok the way it is. it says the news was not surprising so it’s in the past. if it were the news is not surprising then have would make sense.</p>
<p>Yay! I get it! 
Thanks everybody! :)</p>