Would be OR would have been

Anonymouswhat's the difference between WOULD BE and WOULD HAVE BEEN.
It would be better if ...
It would have been better if ...
The difference is in whether it's TOO LATE to change your decision.
Let's say you're driving somewhere, and you can take the high road or the low road to get there.

"It WOULD BE better IF you took the high road" - You hav

I just answered this question.
Please only post your question once!

Thank you very much Kris.
I see... I'm sorry - just a mistake...

In the entry for IDIOM in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (my hardback is the classic first edition) by Mr Fowler:

Idiom is any form of expression that, as compared with other forms in which the principles of abstract grammar, if there is such a thing, would have allowed the idea in question to be clothed, has established itself as the particular way preferred by

Is, isn't, would, wouldn't, and so on apply to present situations. Would have, could have, should have, might have, shouldn't have, etc apply to past hypothetical situations where it's now too late to change what happened; they relate to choices that were made in the past and what the outcome may have been if different choices had been made at the time.

Thanks.

But in that case, isn't the meaning strange? Fowler relates a past hypothetical situation to a present non-hypothetical situation. Of course I can't challenge his grammar, but isn't it better to say

if there were (or had been) such a thing, would have XYZ-ed....

OR

if there is such a thing, would allow....

to make it consistent? HW Fowler's usag

I see what you're saying, but...

The clause "if there is such a thing" is a parenthetical comment on "the principles of abstract grammar". His parenthetical comment is saying that he has some doubt whether there "is such a thing" as "the principles of abstract grammar", in a general way, not specifically in relation to the time when the idiom was formed, i.e. when the idioma

Thanks.

Is this sentence exactly the same structure as Fowler's and grammatical?

If poetry is to be defined by the subject matter alone, Mr Walcott would have ended up with material five times superior to that of the bard who wrote in the Ionian dialect and who, too, loved the sea.

Yes, it is grammatical, and although it obviously does not have exactly the same structure as Fowler's sentence, it does mix present and past tenses in the same way that Fowler's does.

Thanks. The sentence I gave just now is

if-clause present tense, main-clause WOULD HAVE -ED/EN

But is a reverse possible? Today I've come up with a sentence:

I'm not sure whether you are a native Chinese speaker; but if you were one, you don't even know you mother tongue well.

Is the