Is it grammatical?

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"But if my dad had that one card, he won't ever know it."

The above-mentioned is a sentence choice found in my SAT prep book. After specifically pointing out the "tense error" in the original sentence, The explanation designated this "won't ever" as the right answer.

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"won't ever" is wrong. It should be "wouldn't ever."

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That is what I am thinking of... thank you^^

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Are you sure, Roberta? What if the dad is dead? Then the sentence would work.

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Glad you got the answer, J-B. Welcome back.

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gustavratzenhofer wrote:

Are you sure, Roberta? What if the dad is dead? Then the sentence would work.

That's probably the case.

Yet, the original wrong sentence runs as thus
"But if my dad had that one card, he won't know it."

Is there a difference between "won't" and "won't ever". Is "won't" incompatible with the assumption that "dad is dead"?

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Shame on you, Gus. There's a time and place for silly jokes.

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Roberta wrote:

"won't ever" is wrong. It should be "wouldn't ever."

I don't believe that "won't ever" is wrong. Prove it!

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stuh505 wrote:

Roberta wrote:
"won't ever" is wrong. It should be "wouldn't ever."

I don't believe that "won't ever" is wrong. Prove it!

The first phrase has an "if", so it's conditional. So you need to use "would" if that condition is met. So "wouldn't" is correct here.

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I can't see it being "wouldn't". Assuming you're talking about card games, once the hands are folded and returned to the deck, if you didn't see the card, you're never going to know what it was, "it's an ongoing state of non-knowledge. "wouldn't' is a past tense form. "won't" is an ongoing tense form, so would seem to be more appropriate, cause your dad didn't know in the past, doesn't know now, and won't know in the future either.

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I agree about the "if" being important.

If my dad had the card, he wouldn't ever know.

My dad had the card, but he won't ever know.

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Well that's true. So we need to know more about the first sentence. Could you, J-B, quote the sentence before and the sentence following that one, to make the context clearer.

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username wrote:

I can't see it being "wouldn't". Assuming you're talking about card games, once the hands are folded and returned to the deck, if you didn't see the card, you're never going to know what it was, "it's an ongoing state of non-knowledge. "wouldn't' is a past tense form. "won't" is an ongoing tense form, so would seem to be more appropriate, cause your dad didn't know in the past, doesn't know now, and won't know in the future either.

I agree with the conditional IF and WOULD and disagree that "wouldn't" is necessarily a past tense. "I wouldn't believe you if you told me you were 90 years old." That's not past tense. I think Soz has it correctly worded for both examples.

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McTag wrote:

stuh505 wrote:
Roberta wrote:
"won't ever" is wrong. It should be "wouldn't ever."

I don't believe that "won't ever" is wrong. Prove it!

The first phrase has an "if", so it's conditional. So you need to use "would" if that condition is met. So "wouldn't" is correct here.

So according to y'all, the following sentence is invalid:

"If you take my books, I won't go to school."

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No, we're not saying you can't use "if" only with conditionals, but you do use them with conditionals... and upon further reflection, isn't "would" a future conditional of "will"?

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Mame wrote:

No, we're not saying you can't use "if" only with conditionals, but you do use them with conditionals... and upon further reflection, isn't "would" a future conditional of "will"?

That is not consistent with what McTag just said, and I don't see your point

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McTag wrote:

Well that's true. So we need to know more about the first sentence. Could you, J-B, quote the sentence before and the sentence following that one, to make the context clearer.

Sorry, I got a cold yesterday.

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The sentence is numbered as 10. The whole passage is riddled with mistakes and if you bother to do a little quiz you click here

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What I choose as the answer is "(C) card, how could he realize it? ". I don't think "could" couldn't be used in conditional tense.

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5. The correct answer is D.
The main problem is tense. The first half of the sentence sets up a conditional sequence, but the verb is simple past tense: if my dad had and won't know it don't fit together correctly. Of the answers, only A and D solve this tense problem. But A introduces a new problem by creating a mismatched pronoun. The plural they cannot act as a pronoun for the singular my dad. That means choice D must be the right answer.

Seems it implies that "won't ever" is compatible with the general atmosphere of conditional tense...

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I never knew learning English was this complicated.

But, hooray:

J-B's crazy textbook wrote:

5. The correct answer is D.
The main problem is tense. The first half of the sentence sets up a conditional sequence, but the verb is simple past tense: if my dad had and won't know it don't fit together correctly

which is what I said, more or less.

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It shouldn't be, yet I don't want to be casual about everything in my life~~

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McTag wrote:

I never knew learning English was this complicated.

But, hooray:

J-B's crazy textbook wrote:

5. The correct answer is D.
The main problem is tense. The first half of the sentence sets up a conditional sequence, but the verb is simple past tense: if my dad had and won't know it don't fit together correctly

which is what I said, more or less.

No, this is the exact opposite of what you said, it says that "won't" is correct like I was saying, and you said "won't" is incorrect because of tense.

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Is it grammatical?

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