Saturday, August 19, 2017

tense - Past practices: "would" + bare infinitive versus "would have" + past participle






  1. Before the advent of modern anesthesia, a ship's surgeon would have ordered the injured man to be tied down to the table, and he would have proceeded with the amputation. That would have been it.




  2. Before the advent of modern anesthesia, a ship's surgeon would order the injured man to be tied down to the table, and he would proceed with the amputation. That would be it.






Does the tense of the first version (with "have ordered...have proceeded...have been it") corroborate a relationship of past surgical practice to present practice?




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