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The sentence can be given as a grammatical puzzle [7] [8] [9] or an item on a test, [1] [2] for which one must find the proper punctuation to give it meaning. Hans Reichenbach used a similar sentence ("John where Jack had...") in his 1947 book Elements of Symbolic Logic as an exercise for the reader, to illustrate the different levels of language, namely object language and metalanguage.
My father has been to Japan. (he has visited Japan at some time in his life) My father has been in Japan for three weeks. (he is still there) When I returned, John had gone to the shops. (he was out of the house) By the time I returned, John had gone to the shops three times. (he may or may not still be there) When I returned, John had been to ...
Apart from what are called the simple present (write, writes) and simple past (wrote), there are also continuous (progressive) forms (am/is/are/was/were writing), perfect forms (have/has/had written, and the perfect continuous have/has/had been writing), future forms (will write, will be writing, will have written, will have been writing), and ...
In British English (BrE), collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare a committee was appointed with the committee were unable to agree.
In English grammar, the pluperfect (e.g. "had written") is now usually called the past perfect, since it combines past tense with perfect aspect. (The same term is sometimes used in relation to the grammar of other languages.) English also has a past perfect progressive (or past perfect continuous) form: "had been writing".
If you had written (not: would have written), it would have put my mind at rest. However, some varieties of English regularly use would (contracted to 'd) and would have (' d have) in counterfactual condition clauses, although this is often considered non-standard: If you'd leave (standard: you left) now, you'd be on time.