Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar
Conditional
Hi teachers,
When I was reading newspaper, I came across a sentence written like this :
If we don't take these opportunities now, the windows would have closed, others would have seized it, we would have missed the oppotunity.
My question : Why the if-clause is the present real conditional but the main clause is the past unreal conditional? Is that possible?
Shouldn't the sentence be written as follows :
If we don't take these oppotunities now, the windows will be closed, others will seize it, we will miss(or will be missing) the opportunity.
Please enlighten me.
Thank you very much in advance.
Regards,
CW Tan
When I was reading newspaper, I came across a sentence written like this :
If we don't take these opportunities now, the windows would have closed, others would have seized it, we would have missed the oppotunity.
My question : Why the if-clause is the present real conditional but the main clause is the past unreal conditional? Is that possible?
Shouldn't the sentence be written as follows :
If we don't take these oppotunities now, the windows will be closed, others will seize it, we will miss(or will be missing) the opportunity.
Please enlighten me.
Thank you very much in advance.
Regards,
CW Tan
Top answer
This is a dreadful sentence. As far as "would have" versus "will" is concerned, I agree with you. The original seems wrong, and your version seems correct.
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This is a dreadful sentence. As far as "would have" versus "will" is concerned, I agree with you. The original seems wrong, and your version seems correct. But there are several other problems. There seems to be a mix-up of plural and singular, and the sentence ends weakly with the repetition of "opportunity(ies)". I also prefer "will close" rather than "will be closed", and once the plural/singul
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