Were brought up

[Maybo]

A post created by megannjaques on Instagram

The writer uses “had decided” in the first conditional sentence, but in the second conditional sentence, she uses “were brought up” instead of “had been brought up”. Why?

 

[Tarheel]

I see no difference between the two. However, that one should have done some proofreading as there is a missing word.

The punctuation is weird.

I don't know much about Instagram, but apparently they use chatlish.

 

[emsr2d2]

I suggest you don't waste your time analysing posts on social media. Many users have never followed the rules of grammar and punctuation and they never will.

You will, of course, find old-schoolers like me whose social media posts are all correctly capitalised, punctuated and follow grammatical rules. We're a dying breed. I discovered from a young work colleague a few weeks ago that using full stops (periods) in texts/WhatsApps is now considered passive-aggressive! (That's not going to stop me using them.)

 

[Maybo]

Is her second conditional sentence correct? I’d like to know that because sometimes I see “I were”, but I feel like it should be “I had p.p.”. I don’t know when to use which.

 

[emsr2d2]

Is her second conditional sentence correct? I’d like to know that because sometimes I see “I were”, but I feel like it should be “I had p.p.”. I don’t know when to use which.

To be 100% correct, it should be "Do any of you guys wonder if life would've turned out differently if you'd been brought up somewhere else?"

As you can see, there were four errors in just that one sentence:
She failed to capitalise the first word of the sentence.
She used "think" incorrectly.
She used "how" incorrectly.
She used the wrong tense (for BrE, at least).

For info, in the other two sentences of her post, she failed to use a closing punctuation mark after "Paris". She used "think" and "how" incorrectly. She failed to use a closing punctuation mark after "France". She omitted "I" before "guess". She failed to use a closing punctuation mark after "know".
Do you see why it's a bad idea to spend lots of time looking at social media posts?

 

[Maybo]

Do you see why it's a bad idea to spend lots of time looking at social media posts?

I usually only read book reviews or news articles on social media. I just stumbled on that and saw that conditional sentence and like to know if what I’ve learned is correct.

 

[emsr2d2]

I usually only read only book reviews or news articles on social media. I just stumbled on across/upon that and saw that conditional sentence and like wanted to know if what I’ve learned is correct.

 

[Tarheel]

They don't seem to much care about the grammar. In fact, the main concern seems to be that it looks like a child could have written it.

It seems that only ESL learners discuss conditional sentences. A typical native speaker wouldn't have any idea what they are.

 

[jutfrank]

I agree that this is not a question worth asking.

Suffice to say that 'had been' is the correct choice in both sentences.

 

[Maybo]

It seems that only ESL learners discuss conditional sentences. A typical native speaker wouldn't have any idea what they are.

It’s because you already understood the meaning of the sentences.

 

[Maybo]

I agree that this is not a question worth asking.

It’s worth asking for me. I finally understood when to use which.

 

[jutfrank]

It’s worth asking for me. I finally understood when to use which.

Please go ahead and tell us what you finally understand.

 

[Maybo]

In the second sentence, the writer is talking about something didn't happen in her readers' life (being brought up differently) so the sentence should be "...if you'd been brought up somewhere else". She's imagining a different result of that situation. (assuming her readers are grown-ups)
If she's talking about the future, then she should say "...life would turn out differently if you were brought up somewhere else" (assuming her readers are still very young).

Have I got that right?

 

[jutfrank]

In the second sentence, the writer is talking about something didn't happen in her readers' life (being brought up differently) so the sentence should be "...if you'd been brought up somewhere else". She's imagining a different result of that situation. (assuming her readers are grown-ups)

That's right. Good.

If she's talking about the future, then she should say "...life would turn out differently if you were brought up somewhere else" (assuming her readers are still very young).

Have I got that right?

No. Firstly, she isn't talking about the future, she's talking about an imagined past. Secondly, it doesn't make sense to imagine a future in this context, as the assumption is that the readers are already grown up.

It's much easier to say that the latter conditional sentence is simply wrong. You don't need to ask why she used the wrong grammar. That's what I meant when I said your question as it stands in the original post is not worth asking.

 

[Tarheel]

It’s because you already UNDERSTAND the meaning of the sentences.

OK.

 

[Maybo]

It's much easier to say that the latter conditional sentence is simply wrong. You don't need to ask why she used the wrong grammar. That's what I meant when I said your question as it stands in the original post is not worth asking.

If I hadn't asked, how would have I known she's wrong. (Is my conditional sentence correct?)

 

[Tarheel]

Keep in mind that none of us are mind readers.

If you ask me why I used a particular sentence I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. I just said what came to mind at the time.

 

[Maybo]

Keep in mind that none of us are mind readers.

Of course.

I just said what came to mind at the time.

It’s Okay. Not everything can be explained in rules. Sometimes when people ask me about Chinese words, I can’t explain the rules so I just tell them the impression of the words and how I would use them in different situations.

 

[emsr2d2]

If I hadn't asked, how would have I have known she's she was wrong?