It would have/had been okay, if it were you.

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CalifJim  #419880  Mon, 17 Sep 07 05:51 AM
I get you[r] point, therefore ''would have been'' is the correct expression.
Excellent!  Smile [:)]
  
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Marius Hancu  #419988  Mon, 17 Sep 07 11:57 AM
would had
doesn't exist in good English, IMO
  
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CalifJim  #420149  Mon, 17 Sep 07 07:24 PM
would had
doesn't exist in good English, IMO


It doesn't exist in any English, good or bad!

It's one of those combinations that doesn't even make enough sense to be wrong!  (Something like the combination headache agricultural, perhaps, i.e., total nonsense.)

Smile [:)]
CJ

  
Kooyeen  #420155  Mon, 17 Sep 07 07:30 PM
 CalifJim wrote:


It doesn't exist in any English, good or bad!



Hmmm, I wouldn't be so sure... You don't want to know what I once found on the net! A lot of structures that are sometimes used in British dialects. Well, some were umbelievable, lol. Smile [:)]


  
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Anonymous  #514965  Sat, 17 May 08 07:28 PM

it would had been okay if it were you

 

 

  
Anonymous  #543225  Fri, 18 Jul 08 10:01 PM
I absolutely agree that would and had CAN go together particularly when expressing/stressing a past event which also ended in the past - it is after all merely the combination of subjunctive + past perfect.  The following case sounds fine to my Midwest American (long lived in English) ears:

Policeman to woman: "Was your husband home at the time of the robbery?"
Woman: "No, he would had gone out by that time."  (i.e. I'm not sure as I wasn't there either, but I'm almost certain that based on his normal actions he probably was not at home.)
  
Grammar Geek  #543226  Fri, 18 Jul 08 10:09 PM

Oh my.

Well, there are all sorts of regional things. In Maine, they say "It come out good." That doesn't make it standard English.

In your example, if the woman were speaking standard English, she would have said "He would HAVE gone out..." not "would had."

 

  
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Barbara, who answers in American English.
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