Are the words in bold correctly used?

@JTT,

Sorry I was posting without anything in front of me, and just trying to remember the gist of what you said. I don't want to misquote you. You did give a lot of examples that you thought were equally appropriate. That's what I was going on. Looking at the sentence itself I would suggest that as it sounds fine to me, but that you would choose to say things differently, that the source would be more likely to be from this side of the pond.

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@tanguatlay,

True, and Contrex's take works.

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@contrex,

Quote:

Personally, I feel the verbs are inconsistent too.

But now you know better.

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@tanguatlay,

tanguatlay wrote:

Hi JTT

If I were in his place and someone did that to me, I would have used even worse words to call him. I can imagine the pressure and tension Anwar has to go through.

As I said in my first post of this thread, I think the verbs are inconsistent.

If I were in his place and someone did that to me, I would use even worse words to call him. I would write 'would use' for the second part of the sentence instead of 'would have used'.

I think you're right. It looks like a verb tense shift complicated by the use of the subjunctive. This looks more consistent to me:
"If I had been in his place and someone had done that to me, I would have used even worse words to call him."

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@FBM,

Quote:

Yeah, they're correct. It's all in the subjunctive mood, and verbs inflect in several ways in the various forms of the subjunctive.

Quote:

I think you're right. It looks like a verb tense shift complicated by the use of the subjunctive.

Here's a shining example of the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English's caveat that native speakers are notoriously poor judges of how their language works.

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Hello to you, Ms Tan.
My gut feeling, with nothing else to back me up, is that if the focus is clearly on a past event, the greater tendency would be to use,
'had been - would have

Hello, JTT.

I would also use the above structure. That's why I said the sentence I posted contains inconsistency in the use of the verbs.

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@tanguatlay,

Quote:

I would also use the above structure. That's why I said the sentence I posted contains inconsistency in the use of the verbs.

The "greater tendency" doesn't preclude all other choices, Ms Tan.

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I think the original is fine. However I do think you're not using jury correctly. "The jury is out" while they are deciding their verdict, while they are deliberating (they've gone to another room than the courtroom to do that)/ "The jury is in" when they've reached a verdict and come back to the courtroom to deliver it. So you wanted to ask if the jury was still out, not if it wasn't out.

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@MontereyJack,

Quote:

However I do think you're not using jury correctly.

Ms Tan noted her mistake in Post: # 4,605,346 on page 1, MJ.

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Quote:
However I do think you're not using jury correctly.

Ms Tan noted her mistake in Post: # 4,605,346 on page 1, MJ.

You are indeed alert, JTT.

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Are the words in bold correctly used?

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