I would argue that, without the punctuation, it’s not technically correct. The references to James and John saying “had had,” at least, should be in quotes. Additionally, unless broken up with a semicolon or a period before the final four “hads,” it’s a run-on sentence.
If you change the “hads” that mean provided/said in the context of the sentence (excluding the quoted ones), you could write it as:
James, while John had [said] “had”, had [said] “had had”; “had had” had [provided] a better effect on the teacher.
And though it doesn’t flow right to me to have James and his action verb split by a phrase about John, I’m not sure that’s incorrect. Phrasing it to fix the flow, for me, would be:
While John had [said] “had”, James had [said] “had had”; “had had” had [provided] a better effect on the teacher.
I guess. But to me the most baffling thing is such a sentence can even be constructed. Even disregarding the missing punctuation. I don’t think I could even get close to this in my native language. Maybe 2 or 3 worda at most and even then probably not.
I would argue that, without the punctuation, it’s not technically correct. The references to James and John saying “had had,” at least, should be in quotes. Additionally, unless broken up with a semicolon or a period before the final four “hads,” it’s a run-on sentence.
If you change the “hads” that mean provided/said in the context of the sentence (excluding the quoted ones), you could write it as:
And though it doesn’t flow right to me to have James and his action verb split by a phrase about John, I’m not sure that’s incorrect. Phrasing it to fix the flow, for me, would be:
I guess. But to me the most baffling thing is such a sentence can even be constructed. Even disregarding the missing punctuation. I don’t think I could even get close to this in my native language. Maybe 2 or 3 worda at most and even then probably not.
‘Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den’