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This sentence is from George Eliot:

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

I would like to know why did she use "having" instead of "has"? Is it correct to say:

However, today there are painters who, having learned that the grass is green.

Sven Yargs
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haji
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1 Answers1

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Going by your question, I think it's possible you've misinterpreted what Eliot was trying to say here. Your alternative would result in "Blessed is the man who has nothing to say" (let's ignore the other part of the sentence for now) which would imply that simply not having anything to say makes man blessed, which is not the point.

"Having nothing to say" is an example of a dependent clause, meaning your second sentence wouldn't work as you need a clause following it.

What he's saying is that he considers a man who doesn't talk a lot when he has nothing to say is blessed. What you could do is say "Blessed is the man who has nothing to say and abstains from giving evidence with words." or something similar.

Going to your question sentence, it would have to be

However, today there are painters who, having learned that the grass is green, X

where X is something painters did because they learned the grass was green.

John Clifford
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    Wow, What a perfect explanation. Tnx john. I've Got the point right now. – haji Feb 06 '16 at 22:20
  • It took me about 20 minutes to get my wording right for what I was trying to say, so I hope I didn't make any mistakes. No doubt Hot Licks or sumelic will be right behind me to correct me if I did. :D – John Clifford Feb 06 '16 at 22:22
  • "Having" is a present participle. Combining having with a past participle gets you a perfect participle: "The man, who having had nothing to say previously, finally spoke up." There's no past participle in the sentence given. These participles often form absolute constructions, which have little connection to the syntax of the rest of the sentence. – deadrat Feb 06 '16 at 22:29
  • What about "having learned that" then deadrat? Is that still present or can having be past as well? – John Clifford Feb 06 '16 at 22:30
  • My edit and your comment crossed. Does my comment suffice now? – deadrat Feb 06 '16 at 22:33
  • @deadrat Yeah. I should probably edit that part of my answer but I can't think of exactly how to word it (don't want to just copy your words). – John Clifford Feb 06 '16 at 22:35
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    You have my permission to use my phrasing. It's not original to me, and my example isn't particularly clever, so you may use that too. There's also a point that "having" is a non-finite verb form, so "having nothing to say" is a dependent clause. "Has" is finite and would be used in a predicate: "Blessed is the man who has nothing to say and abstains from giving wordy evidence." There's little difference in meaning. The choice of syntactic structures is one of style. – deadrat Feb 06 '16 at 22:39
  • Edited to reflect your points, so it's hopefully correct now. Don't hesitate to let me know if I've made any other mistakes. :) – John Clifford Feb 06 '16 at 22:43