Usage of "was" in hypothetical situations
I fond the following sentence on one of Youtube videos that I watched. Though I can understand the first part of the sentence, what I cannot understand is the usage of "was" in the second part. I know that we can use past tense when we are talking about second conditional situations. However, despite being a hypothetical situation, this is no if clause in here. Therefore, I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me why they have used "was" instead of "is" in the following sentence.
The black hole would consume you before you even realized what was happening.
Top answer
I gather from what you say that you would not have a problem with: If you fell into a black hole, the black hole would consume you before you even realized what was happening. Your sentence is exactly the same in respect of the backshifting to "realized what was happening". There doesn't have to be an explicit "if" clause for this to happen.
- I gather from what you say that you would not have a problem with: If you fell into a black hole, the black hole would consume you before you even realized what was happening.
- Your sentence is exactly the same in respect of the backshifting to "realized what was happening".
- There doesn't have to be an explicit "if" clause for this to happen.
- There may be an implied "if" clause (which would seem to be the case here).
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I gather from what you say that you would not have a problem with:
If you fell into a black hole, the black hole would consume you before you even realized what was happening.
Your sentence is exactly the same in respect of the backshifting to "realized what was happening". There doesn't have to be an explicit "if" clause for this to happen. There may be an implied "if" clau
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