Reprinted with permission by Editor Laura Lawless, http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/.

When talking about something that didn’t happen in the past, many English speakers use the conditional perfect (if I would have done) when they should be using the past perfect (if I had done).

For example, you find out that your brother saw a movie yesterday. You would have liked to see it too, but you hadn’t known he was going. To express this, you can use an if - then clause. The correct way to say this is with the past perfect in the “if” clause, and the conditional perfect in the “then” clause:

Correct: If I had known you were going to the movies, [then] I would have gone too.

The conditional perfect can only go in the “then” clause — it is grammatically incorrect to use the conditional perfect in the “if” clause:

Incorrect: If I would have known you were going to the movies, I would have gone too.

More examples:

Correct: If I had gotten paid, we could have traveled together.

Incorrect: If I would have gotten paid, we could have traveled together.

Correct: If you had asked me, I could have helped you.

Incorrect: If you would have asked me, I could have helped you.

The same mistake occurs with the verb “wish.” You can’t use the conditional perfect when wishing something had happened; you again need the past perfect.

Correct: I wish I had known.

Incorrect: I wish I would have known.

Correct: I wish you had told me.

Incorrect: I wish you would have told me.

Correct: We wish they had been honest.

Incorrect: We wish they would have been honest.

Pop Quiz

Choose A or B.

1.A. If I would have known you were sick, I could have brought you some meals.
1.B. If I had known you were sick, I could have brought you some meals.

2.A. If you had explained the objective, I could have completed the assignment sooner.
2.B. If you would have explained the objective, I could have completed the assignment sooner.

3.A. I wish it would have gone differently.
3.B. I wish it had gone differently.

4.A. We wish the team had scored more goals.
4.B. We wish the team would have scored more goals.

Answers

1.B.
2.A.
3.B.
4.A.

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Wordplay

English Is Easy? (Part 3 of 4)

Thanks to Ken H. for sending these in.

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England or french fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted.
But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

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