0
Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Felt as if they WILL...

In this article:
http://www.ci.trenton.oh.us/boards/council/view_meetings.asp?idNumber=332


He felt as if they will be on middle ground and net out about $100,000 annually on EMS services. 

How is it possible to use future tense when it is followed by pastense+as if??

Thanks!
  

Top answer

I would use would , but I think will is common when the action hasn't yet occured.

— Philip

  • I would use would , but I think will is common when the action hasn't yet occured.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

7 Answers
0
I would use would, but I think will is common when the action hasn't yet occured.
0
0
If you Google these phrases, you'll get about 10 million more hits with "felt as if * would" than with "felt as if * will", but even the one with "will" has about 9 million hits!

CJ
0
0
Any grammatical ground for using "will" in this case?

Thank you CJ.
0
0
pkrAny grammatical ground for using "will" in this case?
Not that I can think of. I took a look at some of those examples I found on Google, and they all seemed as if they would have been better with "would" instead of "will".

CJ
0
0
If the following is grammatically correct:

I took a look at some of those examples I found on Google, and they all seemed as if they can be grammatically improved by using "would" instead of "will".

doesn't it mean the speaker  can use any tense as he sees fit? (including future tense in question)
0
0
pkrIf the following is grammatically correct:
...

doesn't it mean the speaker can use any tense as he sees fit?
I don't see that the correctness or incorrectness of that sentence implies anything about using "any tense". No. I don't think we can make general rules on the basis of any one sentence regardless of what the sentence contains.
0
0
Thank you very much for your time, CJ.
I will bear that in mind.
0

Related Questions