Birthday

My father would have been 88 if he had been alive today.


Is the above correct? A man told me the above just to mention his late father's birthday.

how about this

my father would be 88 if he was alive today.

since you r using "today" it would be more appropriate to use the past simple form of the conditional sentence.

plz answer andrei, you never seem to give any response to my answer. Am i really that bad?

Hi, Andrei
A couple of things:
Yor sentence is perfect.
Mountain Hiker posted another possibility which is also correct:
"Had my father been alive today, he would have been 88."
You have to be careful with this sentence, though, because it is very formal and it would be used mainly in writing –a formal piece of writing. It isn't what you will hear in everyday, colloquial speech.

Also, there is no "present perfect continuous" in the second sentence.
"Would have been" is called “perfect conditional".


Hello, Bubu.
Good to see you again.
"My father would be 88 if he were alive today" is also correct.

Remember the difference between "was" and "were" to indicate mood (subjunctive)?
"Were" is preferred for all persons as a mark of the subjunctive mood.

See you around.

Miriam

I thank everybody for answering the questions. I am delighted to read all expert comments. This enhances my knowledge of English.

Babu asked me to reply when he answered my questions. You are great. I appreciate your comments in the same way I appreciated others comments.

I must tell you one thing; I dislike when you deliberately start a sentence with a simple letter. I don't know why I can't withstand this misatake. I think to write that way is fun for you.

You deliberately write instead of .

I haven't seen that Miriam has not commented on this. I am sure he chimed with me on this point. I know some languages allow you to write in simple letter. Not in English.


German was a crazy language when I was studying the basic course in German. All the pronouns are capitalized in a sentence irrespective whether it is in the middle of a sentence or not.

Andrei,
I know you usually worry aobut the correct use of capitalisation, and your posts are great help.
I seldom comment on it myself because I know that many people deliberately avoid using capitals in message forums, emails, chatrooms. It seems to be an accepted convention. Your reminders, however, are welcomed and appreciated.

Bubu,
"If my father had been alive today, he would have been 88"
and
"Had my father been alive today, he would have been 88"
are different in form but they have the same meaning.

The tenses (past perfect and perfect conditional) are used, together, in this type of conditional tense called of "impossible condition". What is mentioned in the sentence can't happen now because it depends on a condition that is not possible.
Both "if my father had been alive" and "had my father been alive" mean that he is not alive at the time I'm speaking. Consequently, anything that depends on that condition will not happen.

You seem worried about the use of "now". Several time adverbs can be used with these constructions, but they don't make the "action" mentioned possible.
Compare the original sentences to these:
"If my father had been alive last year, he would have come to my graduation party." (I graduated last year)
"If my father had been alive two months ago, we would have invited him to come to Paris with us." (We went to Paris two months ago)

I wuld rewrite your example "Had my father been alive by [or untill?] last month he would have celebrated his 88th birthday"
as
"Had my father been alive last month, he would have celebrated his 88th birthday."

Your sentence is correct and it is also meaningful in the right context. It means that your father's birthday was in June, but he was already dead by then.

Compare your sentence to Andrei's: in his sentence, he says that his father would have been 88 now if he had been alive. He doesn't mention when his birthday was, so we can infer -correctly- that it was either today or or any date in the past year. I mean, he would have been 88 today if his birthday was in 30 June, 22 May, 15 April, or any date in the past year. Does this make any sense?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is the difference between "if he had been here now" and "if he were here now":
- "had he been here now" means that he is not, and also that there is not a possibility that he might have been.
- "if he were here now" means that he is not here, but he might have been.

In this particular case, in which "death" is mentioned, I think it is also acceptable to use a conditional sentence Type II (if + simple past + simple conditional) as you suggest:
"If my father were alive today, he would be 88."

This type of conditional, however, is called of "probable condition". Often, the action (or state)mentioned in these sentences is not very likely to happen, but it is not impossible either. Since we're talking about death, though, I don't think there is a problem with choosing this conditional. It is clear that, if he is dead, he will not be able to do anything, and nothing will hapen to him.
I would choose the 3rd. type of conditional myself, but it may be a matter of personal preference.

Take care

Miriam