unless

[angliholic]

Unless Susannah had fought for her dream, she wouldn't have had the chance to study for an engineering degree.


Is the sentence above correct? Does it make sense?

[Anglika]

Yes and yes.

[angliholic]

Yes and yes.

Thanks, Anglika, for the clear-cut answer, but one of my dictionaries says that it's wrong, for instance, instead of saying:

1. Unless he had helped me, I would have failed.

We should write:

2. If he hadn't helped me, I would have failed.

I couldn't agree more with my dictionary in that unless when matched with past pasticiples just sounds odd to my ears. What's your opinions?

Furthermore, what does the base sentence mean to you? Would you paraphrase it? I'm really baffled.

[BobK]

Thanks, Anglika, for the clear-cut answer, but one of my dictionaries says that it's wrong, for instance, instead of saying:

1. Unless he had helped me, I would have failed.

We should write:

2. If he hadn't helped me, I would have failed.

I couldn't agree more with my dictionary in that unless when matched with past pasticiples just sounds odd to my ears. What's your opinions?

Furthermore, what does the base sentence mean to you? Would you paraphrase it? I'm really baffled.

It sounds to me as if there's a rule out there somewhere (e.g. http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/as...urried-up.html ) that doesn't match native BE speaker intuitions.

b