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In my latest review, an editor first checked my score, got full marks in grammar. And another checked and found an error, which is the following.

Original:
Before the children went to live at their grandparent's house, Mary Jane had had to cope with being separated from her parents.

Editor:
Before the children went to live at their grandparent's house, Mary Jane had to cope with being separated from her parents.

I checked both on grammarly, and both turned out to be correct. What's the difference between the two? And are both acceptable, or only one is correct. Please help English is really making me go Poco loco

Both are grammatically correct. The error would depend on whether it's one or two grandparents.

namesake wrote: ↑15 Jan 2023, 00:51 Both are grammatically correct. The error would depend on whether it's one or two grandparents.

Had for one grandparent and had had for two? Or vice versa?

Anyhow, thank you for clarifying this. I will take your word for it.

MichelleYong wrote: ↑15 Jan 2023, 07:10

namesake wrote: ↑15 Jan 2023, 00:51 Both are grammatically correct. The error would depend on whether it's one or two grandparents.

Had for one grandparent and had had for two? Or vice versa?

Anyhow, thank you for clarifying this. I will take your word for it.

No, I'm not referring to 'had' and 'had had'. I'm talking about the placement of the apostrophe in the word grandparents, if it's one it's placed before the s and if they are two it's placed after the s.

Oh.. that was a embarrassing misunderstanding

MichelleYong wrote: ↑15 Jan 2023, 00:40

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English is really making me go Poco loco

This ^^. English is a pain in the booty! hahaha. So many rules, so little time.

Your sentence is correct if you are referring to an action in the past and another that happened before it in the timeline (past simple, had had). The other sentence is correct if the two actions were in the same timeline in the past but were consecutive (past simple, had).

https://www.englishgrammar.org/have-had-and-had-had/

Some more context might be helpful to know if the use of past perfect is needed. I generally try to avoid using had had since it is a bit jarring to the ears to me. Usually there is a better sounding way to phrase the sentence even if the usage of “had had” is grammatically correct.

One way to evaluate your sentence is to reword it and re-evaluate. See below:

Mary Jane had to cope with being separated from her parents before the children went to live at their grandparent's house.

Versus:

Mary Jane had had to cope with being separated from her parents before the children went to live at their grandparent's house.

Based on this limited information I tend to agree with the second editor.

Surely "had had" is the pluperfect or past perfect (two terms for the same thing). That is used to refer to an action which happened before another action in the past.

But, to be frank, I am not sure that I can see a difference in meaning between the two.