Tenses

No they're not Yoong Liat.

Most songwriters don't write songs with the intention of seeing them end up in EFL/ESL classrooms as examples grammatical structures!

Hi Tanit,

No I wouldn't say that for me personally that mixed conditionals are never acceptable in writing - however, written and spoken English do display different characteristics.

I think that many native speakers feel that when they commit something to paper or the computer screen, then all of their English classes that they had often ignored as a youth come back to haunt them and they suddenly realise that things don't either make sense or 'sound good' when they look at them; due to them changing their ideas midstream as J Lewis mentioned.

Therefore they often go back to the drawing board and start editing and changing what they have written.

This is why writing and speech are very different as writing allows us to edit what we want to say, look for synonyms, etc whereas in speech we can't do this 'after the fact', but only in advance before when have spoken - which is much more difficult.

Don't forget that the main difference with writing is that the communicator is usually not present when it is being read, therefore everything must be clarified using grammar in advance; whereas during a conversation, as the communicator is present, he or she can clarify as they go along, when asked for clarification, or when the other person they are speaking to looks confused.

This is why spoken English is much less grammatically complex (i.e. using fewer tenses), but shows a higher frequency of lexical chunks or blocks of language, and is full of things that if transcribed would be classed as 'errors' when compared to the 'rules' of written grammar.

Remember that spoken English isn't just written English 'said out loud', but operates under different 'rules', many of which we are now only just beginning to understand, as until recently we have never had the means to record the sheer volume of natural speech and to start analysing it...

A step in the right direction to understanding these differences is the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English', published a few years ago, which is the beginning of the (long) process of mapping the differences between these two distinct forms.

Hope that helps...

Marius Hancu wrote:

I'd like to suggest you all read MM's posting here: (...) He seems to be on the conservative side, and I certainly don't mind that

Neither do I! Thank you MM!

So the sentence is not correct ...

One thing needs clarifying. Mixed conditionals are pefectly valid if that is their real meaning. I think that all along the more "conservative" grammarians have been contesting their use where they are not appropriate.

If I hadn't robbed the bank (then) I wouldn't be in prison (now) is a perfectly correct mixed conditional.
If I didn't trust you (in general) I wouldn't have told you the secret (yesterday) is again a correct mixed conditional.

If you were there you would have laughed is an "incorrect" mixed conditional because both parts refer to the past.

The conditional sequences as presented in the text-books illustrate the basic use and meaning of their main and subordinate clauses. Once that is clear they can be used in all kinds of ways, e.g.:
If you're going to the supermarket now, I would have been stupid to go there earlier.