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Thu 6 Sep, 2007 02:15 am
The petition demands that the government abandon proposals to establish a national vehicle-tracking system that would be used to tax motorists every time they drove their cars.
Are the verbs in bold correctly used? I was told by a friend that this sentence comes from 'The Economist'. I wonder whether he was pulling my leg.
To me, the verbs should be 'will' and 'drive'.
Many thanks.
The verbs are correct. A proposal is not a concrete certainty
We use 'would' to make a statement about something that is not real at present, but is possible.
The present conditional of any verb is composed of two parts - the modal auxiliary would + the infinitive of the main verb (without 'to'.) "Would be used".
The use of the past tense indicates unreality. ("drove")
Thank you very much, Contrex.
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