[Grammar] If you would do something, you should do something

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JarekSteliga

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  • I came accross the following exchange on the Internet and am not sure what to make of it seeing that both women are expert native speakers of English. Needless to say, no more was said about this further on in the forum.

    My guess is, Maryanne is right, but is she really?


    Maryanne Khan says:
    December 22, 2011 at 4:16 pm
    Melissa,
    not to be mean, but I noticed that you said “If you would replace the interrogative pronoun (who or whom) with him, then you should use whom” when the subjunctive case is appropriate. “If you replaced . . .” or “If you were to replace.”


    • aa572f697bfb502a021f88847ae4c737
      Melissa Donovan says:
      December 28, 2011 at 2:57 pm
      Thanks, Maryann, for your suggestion. I think your suggestion is a good one but I’m still content with my original wording.Maryanne Khan says:
 

5jj

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"If you would replace" sounds unnatural to me, and there is no such thing as 'the subjunctive case'.
 

emsr2d2

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From this very brief bio, I would venture to suggest that Maryanne Khan is not a native speaker of English. She is currently located in Australia but it says she has been "living abroad" for 26 years. 2 of her 4 books are based in Pakistan and her surname suggests that she may well be from that part of the world.
 

JarekSteliga

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"If you would replace" sounds unnatural to me ...

Is this to say that Melissa made a mistake? Why then did she refuse to stand corrected?
 

5jj

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Is this to say that Melissa made a mistake? Why then did she refuse to [STRIKE]stand[/STRIKE] be corrected?
Some people will never admit their mistakes.
 
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