Jose Carillo's English Forum
Joe Carillo's Desk => You Asked Me This Question => Topic started by: goodby4usa on April 15, 2012, 11:20:44 PM
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While on the Internet yesterday, I stumbled upon the topic of "mixed conditionals." Before that, I had always thought (is my use of the past perfect here correct?) that in unreal conditional sentences, the time in the if-clause should ALWAYS MATCH the time in the result or main clause, as in these sentences: "If I were pretty, I would have a boyfriend now," and "If I hadn't missed the train, I wouldn't have been late for my job interview." Now, my question is, are mixed conditional sentences like the ones below acceptable English?
(1) “If I had taken French in high school, I would have more job opportunities.”
(2) “If Mark had gotten the job instead of Joe, he would be moving to Shanghai.”
(3) “If I didn”t have to work so much, I would have gone to the party last night.”
(4) “If I weren”t going on my business trip next week, I would have accepted that new assignment at work.”
(5) “If Dan weren”t so nice, he wouldn”t be tutoring you in math tonight.”
(6) “If Sandy were giving a speech tomorrow, she would be very nervous.”
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For bot-like behavior of blatantly replicating a previous posting by another Forum member, goodby4usa, you have given us no choice but to ban you permanently from the Forum. This material was a posting by Forum member English Maiden last January 21, 2012 under the following heading, "The four types of conditional sentences," (http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=2155.msg5437;topicseen#msg5437) which I had duly answered.
To those who would like to read that previous posting, please click the link indicated above. For more about conditional sentences, click this link to an essay of mine, "Do better than a calculated guess in handling conditional sentences, (http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1165.msg3395;topicseen#msg3395)" that I posted in the Forum last January 8, 2011.