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Wingedfish Posted 18 years ago
Grammar
IF * would have ?
Hello, there,
I have recently encountered many sentences like the following:
If somebody would have told Naomi that boy was there, she would have gone away.
My beloved husband died after a lingering illness on 29th April at 18 minutes past 4 o'clock in the morning … if he would have lived to the 25th August, he would have been 63 years old.
Normally, this sentence will be : If somebody had told Naomi that boy was there, she would have gone away.
But, why WOULD here? I found many sentences like this even in the British National Corpus, or the Corpus of Contemproary American English (http://www.americancorpus.org/). And also the following sentence :
When I try to draw a portrait from memory I run into the same problem. I can remember one detail of the face and when I try to concentrate on the rest of the face, everything disappears. The harder I try, the less I remember. While the face is disappearing from my memory I feel that if I would see a picture or a drawing of him I would recognize him.
I am very curious about this sort of sentences.
Could you please tell me if these sentences are acceptable for you? Thank you very much.
I have recently encountered many sentences like the following:
If somebody would have told Naomi that boy was there, she would have gone away.
My beloved husband died after a lingering illness on 29th April at 18 minutes past 4 o'clock in the morning … if he would have lived to the 25th August, he would have been 63 years old.
Normally, this sentence will be : If somebody had told Naomi that boy was there, she would have gone away.
But, why WOULD here? I found many sentences like this even in the British National Corpus, or the Corpus of Contemproary American English (http://www.americancorpus.org/). And also the following sentence :
When I try to draw a portrait from memory I run into the same problem. I can remember one detail of the face and when I try to concentrate on the rest of the face, everything disappears. The harder I try, the less I remember. While the face is disappearing from my memory I feel that if I would see a picture or a drawing of him I would recognize him.
I am very curious about this sort of sentences.
Could you please tell me if these sentences are acceptable for you? Thank you very much.
Top answer
It's simply a case of sloppy English. In the States, not much attention is paid to grammar in English classes. Many educated Americans make this mistake, and it drives me crazy.
- It's simply a case of sloppy English.
- In the States, not much attention is paid to grammar in English classes.
- Many educated Americans make this mistake, and it drives me crazy.
- I call this particular unpleasant structure "double woulda".
- The term stuck with my students.
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2 Answers
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It's simply a case of sloppy English. In the States, not much attention is paid to grammar in English classes. Many educated Americans make this mistake, and it drives me crazy. I call this particular unpleasant structure "double woulda". The term stuck with my students. Many of my students in French or Spanish classes told me the only place they learned any English grammar at all was in forei
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