why does the author use "were"in here? B:what do you do about miscarriages of justice if you’ve already put innocent people to death? A: You’d only use capital punishment if you were absolutely sure t

小二的歌

why does the author use "were"in here? B:what do you do about miscarriages of justice if you’ve already put innocent people to death? A: You’d only use capital punishment if you were absolutely sure that you’d convicted the right person. B: But, there’ve been many cases of wrongful conviction where people have been imprisoned for many years. why does A use " were "in "if you were absolutely sure that "here?Thx..

Feb 27, 2015 7:18 AM

Answers · 4

The speaker is using the second conditional form, which means he uses the simple past tense ("were") in the "if" clause, and "would" (or other modal verb) + present simple verb in the other clause. In this case, "You'd (You would) only use..." is the other clause, and "if you were sure..." is the "if" clause. This also falls into the category of the subjunctive form, but that's too difficult to explain here!

February 27, 2015

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