Native English speaker here, with training in linguistics, and several other languages under my belt over the years.
In my native dialect, statements including "had to have been being" are rather common. My friends, family, co-workers, etc. use them regularly. In fact, I recall saying "he'd have had to have been being reckless" just earlier today. All five of the other people present- both immediate family and non-relatives from this area- knew precisely what was meant. In other words, that intimidating clump of verbs passed unremarked.
Further, to andensande's point, one might be inclined to replace that god-awful monstrosity with something like "he must've been reckless." To do so would be to wipe out some subtleties of meaning from the original. A replacement like "he must've been acting recklessly at the time" feels like the same general meaning to me, but it also sounds stuffy and snobbish in tone (for all that it's probably a much more effective construction).
All things considered, every language that I've ever dealt with in any capacity has had its share of peculiarities. In hindsight, however, I don't recall Arabic, Zulu, or even Gallo-Lati... er, I mean French... having quite as few peculiarities as my sponge-like mother tongue.
In my native dialect, statements including "had to have been being" are rather common. My friends, family, co-workers, etc. use them regularly. In fact, I recall saying "he'd have had to have been being reckless" just earlier today. All five of the other people present- both immediate family and non-relatives from this area- knew precisely what was meant. In other words, that intimidating clump of verbs passed unremarked.
Further, to andensande's point, one might be inclined to replace that god-awful monstrosity with something like "he must've been reckless." To do so would be to wipe out some subtleties of meaning from the original. A replacement like "he must've been acting recklessly at the time" feels like the same general meaning to me, but it also sounds stuffy and snobbish in tone (for all that it's probably a much more effective construction).
All things considered, every language that I've ever dealt with in any capacity has had its share of peculiarities. In hindsight, however, I don't recall Arabic, Zulu, or even Gallo-Lati... er, I mean French... having quite as few peculiarities as my sponge-like mother tongue.