...you'd offered me
‘I don't like Scotch. Now, if it had been Irish Whiskey you'd offered me’
That's from the Oxford Dictionary: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/now
My question is: what type of the conditional is the clause if it had been Irish Whiskey you'd offered me?
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I've tried to read it as if it had been Irish Whiskey (that) you'd offered me’, but I, somehow, cannot find any correlation between the if-clause and I don't like Scotch. Now,...
Top answer
You're quoting a definition of the word "now", not an example of a full conditional construction. And like most dictionary definitions, unnecessary words are ellipted. The phrase Now, if it had been Irish Whiskey you'd offered me is just the protasis part of a remote conditional -- the apodosis is missing, though inferrable from the context.
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You're quoting a definition of the word "now", not an example of a full conditional construction. And like most dictionary definitions, unnecessary words are ellipted.
The phrase Now, if it had been Irish Whiskey you'd offered me is just the protasis part of a remote conditional -- the apodosis is missing, though inferrable from the context.
You could expand it to a full con
0It's a third conditional. The main clause is implied but not stated.
Understand the sentence this way.
Now, if it had been Irish Whiskey you'd offered me, I would have drunk some with you.
Clive
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