Meaning of "would have's" in the following conversation, please

Anonymousthe meaning of "would have's"

'would' and 'would have' don't have any meaning as such. They are more like indicators that the speaker is looking at a situation in a hypothetical way. Imagining it. Pretending it. Supposing it.

Note that the following is factual. It's a question about something that happened in the past. And the answer al

Think of it in terms of the third conditional (impossible past):

e.g.,
A: Would you have told her the truth if she had been calm?
B: No, I would have lied because the truth would have devastated her.
This is imaginary. The fact is that B did not tell her the truth. A is just asking an imaginary "what if" question [What if she had been calm; would you have told he

teechrThe fact is that B did not tell her the truth.

I have to disagree to some extent and, I suppose, necessarily from my own viewpoint. Since the situation is imaginary, there are no facts involved at all, in the sense of actual happenings. B did not tell her a lie, but B did not tell her the truth either. Even if B says "I would have lied" (or "I would h

I see your point Jim.
I suppose there's also the possibility that nothing was said at all (truth or lie), and that the