as if it had only just been discovered

[EngLearner]

I found the following sentence on this website:

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had only just been discovered. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

Is "had been discovered" here an example of the past perfect subjunctive (as they call it on this website)?

 

[5jj]

Yes. However as all past perfect subjunctive forms are identical in form to past perfect indicative forms, I see no value in preserving the name. I would guess that fewer than 10% of native speakers have ever heard of past perfect subjunctive forms.

 

[EngLearner]

Suppose someone dies. Then, two years after that, someone else, who's related to them and still can't get over their loss, says:

I still miss him. It's been two years already, but it feels as if it had happened just yesterday.

Would the use of the past perfect subjunctive "had happened" be appropriate here?

 

[emsr2d2]

No. In that situation, we'd use "as if it happened yesterday".

 

[EngLearner]

Bridget is the captain of her team in lacrosse. Because she's falling behind in her studies, the principal has suspended her in that role and forbidden her to play until her grades improve. Earlier, while she was still on the team, they won a game and wanted to get laurels tatoos to remember that win by. So she's not been on the team for two weeks, and her team go and get those tattoos without her. She gets upset because of that. She then has this conversation with her teacher:

Teacher: "Well, what are you most proud of?"
Bridget: "Lacrosse, I guess."
Teacher: "Must be hard for you not being on the team."
Bridget: "Yeah, well, I've only been gone for a couple of weeks, and it's like I never existed. I mean they got their laurels tatoos without me."

Source: "Evil Teacher", a movie (timestamp: 28m53s).

If Bridget had used "as if" instead of "like" in the underlined part of the sentence in the dialog, like this:

Yeah, well, I've only been gone for a couple of weeks, and it's as if I'd never existed. I mean they got their laurels tatoos without me.

Would she have had to continue with the past perfect subjunctive "...it's as if I'd never existed...", or would she still have said it like this "...it's as if I never existed..."?

 

[5jj]

I would use the past perfect with both like and as if. As past perfect forms of all verbs have identical indicative and subjunctive forms, I see no point in labelling the moods.

 

[EngLearner]

There's a village. A long time ago, the residents of it were dying of plague and because of that they made a deal with a mysterious creature named Ogre who made them immortal. The price they have to pay for their immortality is that every year they have to choose a villager and sacrifice him/her to Ogre. Hope doesn't want to live like that anymore, and so the following dialog takes place between her and Franklin:

Franklin: "Hope, over the years we've all lost those we loved, including you and your father."

Hope: "Yes, my mother was one of the first. I remember it as if it was yesterday. But at least she died of the plague, at least she died of natural causes."

Source: "Ogre", a movie (timestamp: 24m55s).

In this example, the simple past "was" is used just as in the example I made up in post #3. Why the simple past and not the past perfect? What makes the examples in this post and post #3 different from the examples in post #5 and post #1? Logically, Hope hypothesizes about how she would feel today if her mother had died yesterday. This is a counterfactual scenario in the past, and we use the past perfect in the if clause of a conditional sentence when hypothesizing about what would be the case now if the situation had been different from what it actually was some time earlier. Do verbs such as "feel" and "remember" that precede the words "as if" have something to do with it?

 

[jutfrank]

Hope: "Yes, my mother was one of the first. I remember it as if it was yesterday.

It should more correctly be 'were' (as if it were yesterday), but some people don't bother with a subjunctive in cases like this.

I don't think this is about the past, by the way. Hope is talking primarily about the vividness of the memory of the event, not the event itself. It's a counterfactual present.

 

[EngLearner]

Let's consider these two particular cases:

I still miss him. It's been two years already, but it feels as if it happened yesterday.

Yeah, well, I've only been gone for a couple of weeks, and it's as if I'd never existed. I mean they got their laurels tatoos without me.

In both cases, it's kind of the same thing. In the first case, he didn't die yesterday, and in the second case, she did exist. What goes after the words "as if" is a counterfactual past in both cases, so logically the tenses should also be the same. Why are they different?

 

[jutfrank]

In both cases, it's kind of the same thing. In the first case, he didn't die yesterday, and in the second case, she did exist.

Yes.

What goes after the words "as if" is a counterfactual past in both cases, so logically the tenses should also be the same. Why are they different?

They are the same, aren't they? In the tattoos example, I thought they said "it was like I never existed", not "like I'd never existed". No? You posted a link to the film a couple of days ago. Am I mistaken?

 

[EngLearner]

They are the same, aren't they? In the tattoos example, I thought they said "it was like I never existed", not "like I'd never existed". No? You posted a link to the film a couple of days ago. Am I mistaken?

Yes, you're right. But in this thread I then posted the same example with "as if" in place of "like" to see if the past perfect subjunctive "...as if I'd never existed..." would be required there (post #5). 5jj said in post #6 that he would use "...as if I'd never existed...".

 

[jutfrank]

5jj said in post #6 that he would use "...as if I'd never existed...".

Okay, I understand now. For the record, I would use the same as the original: It's like I never existed.

 

[5jj]

5jj said in post #6 that he would use "...as if I'd never existed...".

 

[EngLearner]

Rvalue references distinguish lvalues from rvalues. To improve the performance of your applications, they can eliminate the need for unnecessary memory allocations and copy operations. They also enable you to write a function that accepts arbitrary arguments. That function can forward them to another function as if the other function had been called directly.

This is how I understand the meaning of what they wrote in the article:

The function that accepts arbitrary arguments can forward them to another function even though the other function hasn't been called directly.

They represent the calling of the other function as a counterfactual past and they use the past perfect to do so. Do I understand correctly?

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, I think so.

 

[EngLearner]

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had only just been discovered. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

If I say it like this (with a specific time like "yesterday"):

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it was discovered just yesterday. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

Should I use the simple past "was discovered" (as I have done), and would the past perfect "had been discovered" be incorrect in this case?

 

[jutfrank]

Should I use the simple past "was discovered" (as I have done), and would the past perfect "had been discovered" be incorrect in this case?

Use the past perfect, to get the past meaning.

 

[EngLearner]

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it was discovered just yesterday. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

Use the past perfect, to get the past meaning.

Do you mean that it would be incorrect to use the simple past "was discovered" the way I did if I want to talk about a counterfactual past, and that I should say it like this:

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had been discovered just yesterday. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

 

[jutfrank]

Do you mean that it would be incorrect to use the simple past "was discovered" the way I did if I want to talk about a counterfactual past

Yes, I do.

, and that I should say it like this:

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had been discovered just yesterday. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

Yes, exactly. The past perfect shifts the action back in time to yesterday.

 

[EngLearner]

Suppose someone had an accident a year ago. They were taken to the hospital, the doctors helped them there, and they survived. Suppose they had another accident today. The doctors did all they could, but they couldn't help them, and the person died. Someone who hates the person who died might say one of these:

1. I wish it had happened a year ago.

2. If it had happened a year ago, the doctors wouldn't have had to waste their time trying to save him this time.

The example in post #18 also has the same structure for the same reason:

3. Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had been discovered just yesterday...

Now there's this example (post #3):

4. I still miss him. It's been two years already, but it feels as if it happened yesterday.

In examples #1 and #2, it didn't happen a year ago (hence the use of the past perfect "had happened"). In example #3, the internet was discovered a long time ago and not yesterday (hence the use of the past perfect "had been discovered"). When talking about something counterfactually, we normally use the past perfect. Why is example #4 special in this respect? Why is it incorrect to use the past perfect "had happened" there when it's obvious that the death didn't happen yesterday?