On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 22:26:33 +0000, HenHanna wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 19:37:42 +0000, Marius_Hancu wrote:
>
>> FWIW:
>>
>> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=what+might+have+been%2C+what+may+have+been&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
>>
>> Best.
>> --
>> Marius Hancu
>
>
>
> i go camping with friends
> and there is a problem
> (sudden illness, or someone almost drowns)
>
> Afterwards i remember....
>
>
> What might have been a great weekend turned out to be a nightmare.
>
this is the typical Counterfactual sentence.
>
> What may have been a great weekend turned out to be a nightmare.
>
>
There was no problem for me,
(and apparently for everyone else)
but a friend (in the group) was secretly
going thru a crisis.
(perceptual difference)
What may have been a thoroughly-pleasant, great weekend for me
was certainly not so for Bill.
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