Quote:
Originally Posted by atakdog
Yes, it is dead wrong; your second statement is obviously hyperbole, but many people hearing "if I would have" will note the error.
Sorry, the "lacks basic familiarity with the English language" part was more aimed at Diego than you, since you never said anything like that. Your position seems to be that this is a rule of formal English, and I'm not disputing that. I wasn't aware of it, but whatever. I don't know and honestly I just don't care about the grammatical details of formal English. But Diego's position is that knowledge of this rule is a prerequisite for competence in English, and I think that's ridiculous.