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I've come across the - more or less - following sentence in a book (American publisher):

"They have done it in the past"

I've always thought that "PAST" and "PRESENT PERFECT" can't go together. The proofreading for the book is generally rather poor so it might be a simple mistake. Or there's more to it, is there? Like the PresPerf is there to stress completion? Or - aware of the US tendency to replace PresPerf with Past Simple - the author tried too hard and ended up hypercorrect? Or am I reading too much into it?

jules
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    It's perfectly grammatical. The present perfect is used for actions which have implications in the present, and "the past" is a long stretch of time which ends in "the present". If you say "we went to the Moon in the past", the implication is that we aren't doing so today. If you say "we have gone to the Moon in the past", the implication is that it's possible we could do it again. – Peter Shor Mar 01 '14 at 22:57
  • So no native speaker of English would find the following sentences unusual: "I've done it yesterday". "I've done it last year"? – jules Mar 02 '14 at 08:09
  • From the Wiki link provided by Susan: " When a past time frame (a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past) is specified for the event, explicitly or implicitly, the simple past is used rather than the present perfect." So, should we not say only "We've gone to the Moon"? – jules Mar 02 '14 at 08:13
  • From the quote in your comment: "a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past". "In the past" is a period of time that *ends* at the present. – Peter Shor Mar 02 '14 at 11:59
  • I'm not a native speaker so there may be a language gap here. So what you're saying is that the very word "past" does not mean a period that's long finished. And it may be a synonym to ~"recently". Any linguistic data to support this? (And isn't "in the past" in the example simply redundant?) Or are we having a philisophical debate on what's "present"? :-D BTW. the examples with "yesterday" coupled with PresPerf are incorrect, right? – jules Mar 02 '14 at 16:03
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    "In the past" *can* mean any time before now. "In the past day" means in the last 24 hours, and "in the past week" means in the last seven days. You can use present perfect with both of these constructions. People also often use "in the past" to mean a time considerably removed from the current one, and you wouldn't use present perfect with it if you intended this meaning; you'd only use it if you intended it to mean everything that happened up to now. – Peter Shor Mar 02 '14 at 16:08

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It's been explained often on this site, and @Peter Shor explains again in his comment, that the present perfect is simply the past with an expectation of more to come.

The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect, used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar, where it refers to forms such as "I have left" and "Sue has died".

In the above example, clearly (I) left in the past, but there is an implication for present day consequences:

I have left, but I will most certainly be back. I have left, and you'll realize what you've been missing.

Similarly, in your example:

They have done it in the past; there is no reason they cannot do it again.

People often misuse the present perfect for the simple past, and it's understood, though it's less than ideal usage. Sometimes it is used to emphasize that an action has been completed:

I have finished my homework!

But the implication is still there:

I have finished my homework! So stop accusing me of slacking off!

anongoodnurse
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  • From the Wiki link you provided: " When a past time frame (a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past) is specified for the event, explicitly or implicitly, the simple past is used rather than the present perfect." – jules Mar 02 '14 at 08:14