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Eipjoo Posted 13 years ago
Vocabulary
he'd be back
“Dear, dear!” the vicar said. “I’m sure Bert Archer, at the garage, can put it right for you. I’ll ring him up, if you like.”
“Oh, no,” the woman said quickly – perhaps too quickly – “we wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble. Rupert’s gone down the high street. He’s probably already found someone.”
“If he had, he’d be back by now,” the vicar said, “Let me ring Bert.”
I wonder if ‘he’d be back’ needs to be ‘he’d have been back’, because Rupert’s has not yet come back, and the vicar is going to ring Bert, a mechanic. Am I wrong on my wondering?
“Oh, no,” the woman said quickly – perhaps too quickly – “we wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble. Rupert’s gone down the high street. He’s probably already found someone.”
“If he had, he’d be back by now,” the vicar said, “Let me ring Bert.”
I wonder if ‘he’d be back’ needs to be ‘he’d have been back’, because Rupert’s has not yet come back, and the vicar is going to ring Bert, a mechanic. Am I wrong on my wondering?
Top answer
eipjoo I wonder if ‘he’d be back’ needs to be ‘he’d have been back’ No, the present tense is needed because in the highlighted text, the speaker is talking about an unreal present situation. Using the conditional perfect in the main clause would be logically inconsistent with by now .
- eipjoo I wonder if ‘he’d be back’ needs to be ‘he’d have been back’ No, the present tense is needed because in the highlighted text, the speaker is talking about an unreal present situation.
- Using the conditional perfect in the main clause would be logically inconsistent with by now .
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1 Answers
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eipjooI wonder if ‘he’d be back’ needs to be ‘he’d have been back’No, the present tense is needed because in the highlighted text, the speaker is talking about an unreal present situation. Using the conditional perfect in the main clause would be logically inconsistent with by now.
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