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If I were you... a question on conditional

 
 
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 03:51 am
"If I were you, I would go to Paris"

Can you write the above sentence as:

"Being you, I would go to Paris"

???

It looks so weird. Is this kind of construction possible?
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Type: Question • Score: 2 • Views: 710 • Replies: 9
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 03:57 am
You could write that, but it would not be saying what the first sentence says.
clare10022
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 04:04 am
@Setanta,
Would that mean something like - because I'm like you; because I'm the same kind of person as you, etc.?
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 04:12 am
@clare10022,
No, it would not. It is nonsensical in English.
clare10022
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 04:14 am
@Setanta,
So it could be written but it should not?
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 04:22 am
@clare10022,
I have no opinion on what should be written. Anything can be written. The relevant question is whether or not it would make sense to an English speaker. Your second sentence makes no sense.
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Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 04:51 am
OK, i'm not being as helpful as i could be. "If I were you . . . " (subjunctive) establishes a condition. "I would . . ." responds to the condition. "Being you . . ." is nonsensical--you are not your interlocutor--and it establishes no condition. Native speakers of English, even when they are not considering the tenses of verbs, understand this instinctively. If the advice one is offering is unwelcome, they would respond: "Yes, but you're not me."

I don't know how else to say this: the sentence which begins with "Being you . . ." is nonsense.
clare10022
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 05:22 am
@Setanta,
Thanks, I realized I didn't state my question properly.
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Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 06:11 am
There is a common construction in English which you may have confused you.

Jimmy really hopes he'll win the office pool.

Knowing him, he would just squander the money anyway.


That's idiomatic, and it is not reasonable to assume from that that present participles can be sustituted for subjunctive statements of condition.
clare10022
 
  1  
Reply Wed 9 Mar, 2016 06:58 am
@Setanta,
Yes, I should've asked whether the construction like that possible in conditional.
0 Replies
 
 

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