Comments on: If I Would Have… vs. If I Had…

By: Jane

Jane — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 21:52:43 +0000

The word might is the past tense of may. Since you are speaking of the past tense, the correct word is might. He might have seen me.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:27:38 +0000

Either of these would be correct. You could also write “probably would have had.”

By: Jane

Jane — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:25:54 +0000

Please note the September 6, 2011 comment by Christine and my September 7, 2011 response.

By: Paul k

Paul k — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:24:56 +0000

I don’t agree with you.how could “I wish I would have read renea’s book”be correct?

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:14:44 +0000

Yes, your sentence is correct.

By: Behnam

Behnam — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:25:06 +0000

I think if you had liked English, then you would have learned it more easily. Correct use of conditional Jane, isn’t it?

By: sj

sj — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:02:10 +0000

I have one query … what should i say if somebody probably saw me..
he may have seen me. or
might be he would have seen me…

may” or might” are only for future tense ?

By: Stuart Dobson

Stuart Dobson — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:36:17 +0000

I’m stuck on this…which would be correct?

would have probably had
or
would probably have had

or neither?!

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:25:47 +0000

The conditional perfect (if it would have been) can only go in the “then” clause — it is grammatically incorrect to use the conditional perfect in the “if” clause. Therefore, I recommend rewriting the sentence to read:

If it’s “somebody”…it could be “anybody,” but if it had been “someone,” it could have been “the one.”

Use double quotation marks rather than single quotation marks for everything except quotations within quotations, with the comma going inside.

By: Athene

Athene — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:51:46 +0000

One question: is this sentence okay?
(The sentence is about the word “somebody” – which was used (“wrong”) by a friend of mine, by saying: “somebody special” – I think it should have been “someone special”, anyway i want it to be like that.

PS. I dont want to be very specific in my sentence… it should not be easy to understand… (the meaning) but I’m not sure it is ok, from a gram. point of view.
So here the sentence:

If it’s ‘somebody’ … it could be ‘anybody’, but if it would have been “someone”, it could have been ‘the one’

“If it’s ‘somebody’ .. it could be ‘anybody’ (NOW) , but if it would have been “someone” (PAST) , it could have been ‘the one’ (FUTURE-PRESENT, something that could have been true by now)

Meaning: you were using the word “somebody” and thats why “anybody” could be ment by that word, but if you were using “someone”, you would probably refer to “the one” (the one you love for eg.)