ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Fast talk

munchun2004 — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:45:13 GMT

Thank you, CalifJim, for your thoughtful replay.

Re: Fast talk

CalifJim — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:15:54 GMT

How would he feel if they tried the same thing with him, and he had an opportunity to assist the authorities, to bring these criminals into justice, and he did nothing about it?

This is just a normal (present time) "second conditional" to me. The question asks how this person ("he") would feel now if a certain condition were true now.

How WOULD he FEEL
IF they TRIED the ...., and he HAD an opportunity ... and he DID nothing about it?

Suppose the conversation had moved from a current event to something that had happened years ago. The speaker might wonder how one of the participants in that past event felt at the time of that (past) event by saying:

How WOULD he HAVE FELT
IF they HAD TRIED the ..., and he HAD HAD an opportunity ... and he HAD DONE nothing about it?

(This could be said even if the person whose feelings we are inquiring about were dead.)

That said, I suppose it is fairly common to substitute the past for the past perfect - but I don't think this is an example of it.

CJ

Fast talk

munchun2004 — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:02:01 GMT

I have some problem with tenses backshift that I hope somebody could help me with. I heard the following dialog from the MSN Video show:

Avenger Father: How would he feel if they tried the same thing with him, and he had an apportunity to assist the authority, to bring these criminals into justice, and he did nothing about it?

My problem is, does the above sentence sound like a present time third conditional or past time third conditional to you? I know that when we try to explain the third conditional for past event, we should always double backshift. So by right, the above sentence should sound as follow:

Avenger Father: How would he feel if they had tried the same thing with him, and he had had an apportunity to assist the authority, to bring these criminals into justice, and he had done/had had done(could we use 'did' too?) nothing about it?

But from what I hear from the native speaker, especially from the news, they kind of eat up all the backshift whenever they try to convey what would happen to somebody if that person had been in his situation when the incident happened. Could somebody tell me whether this is a trend of English, especially in spoken English, to not backshift for third conditional or people are simply careless when they speak the past third conditional cases?