He would have been 93 on Sunday

Former Labour Prime Minister Lord Callaghan has died aged 92, a family spokeswoman has said.

He passed away at home in East Sussex, just over a week after his wife Audrey died aged 91.

Lord Callaghan, who would have been 93 on Sunday, recently became the oldest living former British PM in history.

James Callaghan became prime minister in 1976 after the resignation of Harold Wilson. He became Lord Callaghan of Cardiff in 1987.


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Lord Callaghan, who would have been 93 on Sunday.


Is the following correct too in this conetext?
Lord Callaghan, who would be 93 on Sunday.
Your thoughts, please.



Let us say that you are 102 years old today and your birtday falls on Sunday. You will say I will be 103 on Sunday.

1. If my father lived today, he would be 106 years old.

I am sure the above is fine

The "would have been 93 on Sunday" phrase is an idiomatic way of saying that particular day was his birthday. It is a form of saying that he "would have turned (or become) 93 on Sunday."

Let me try help you, Andrei

Your last two sentences are not right since the 2-d conditional isn't appropriate here. As you undertsand the condition included is IMPOSSIBLE, therefore the 3-d condition should be used. (The second conditional, as you used it, describes HYPOTHETICAL, POSSIBLE situation. In the first two sentences it's possible that you eat the poisonous food so it's OK).

So:
If Adolf HAD LIVED (=the option of his living is impossible), he would be...

Andrei,

There's nothing wrong with your sentence from the viewpoint of the tenses you use. As pointed out by others, the problem is with the idiomatic way of indicating in English that a person is not dead!

In the present we say, "I am alive", not "I live".

The idiomatic way to ask a related question, for example, is "Is he dead or is he alive?" We don't say, "Is he dead or does he live?" There is nothing ungrammatical about it. It's just not the way you'll hear people express that idea. That's why I would change your phrase from " if he lived" (not the typical way (i.e., idiomatic way) of saying it) to "if he were alive". "if he was alive" is also said by many speakers, but it's not at all usual to say "if he lived".

But as I said above, the tenses you used are fine.

CJ

Hi JTT and CJ

I was taught that when we have a situation which is at the moment impossible, we must use the 3-d condition.

JTT: Give me some examples if you would, Maverick. Also, tell me again what the 3rd conditional is. I've never bothered to memorize them them because they are largely useless for ENLs and next to useless for teaching ESL.

Mav:
And if the situation is hypothetical, still it's possible that it will hapen but now it's not the case, we use the 2-nd. For example: 'If I were you I would be smarter' -- now I am not 'you' but I can probably become in the future.

JTT: The "if I were you" part is just our way of offering advice without being too forward. We may not be talking about anything hypothetical, example,

Imagine you have a headache. I say, "If I were you I'd take an asprin". There's nothing really hypothetical; I only use this form to be polite. It's not much difference in meaning to,

"You should take some aspirin."

Mav:
But Hitler will not probably and hopefully turn out to be alive.

Isn't that right?

JTT: Here's how to tell which to use. Write the truth, which is,

TRUTH: Hitler isn't alive.

To create the flip side to that, the counterfactual we just backshift to the past tense FORM, so,

Hitler isn't alive. -- becomes -->>> If Hitler were alive, he'd ...

Hitler died in 1945. ---->>>> If Hitler hadn't died in 1945, he would have ...