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ninafe
08-23-2006, 03:29 AM
I need help with conditionals.
Movie ‘About a boy’ (based on the book by Nick Hornby)
Veneer : the first date
Will and Christine don’t know anything about each other and are meeting for the first time.
C: - There’s something you don’t know about me.
W: - Something exciting?
C: -I have a three-year-old boy.
W: -I would have been disappointed if you didn’t have a child.

What does the last sentence mean? Does Will imagine (or try to stress) that at some time in the past he intended to date a woman with a child? But then it means that Will wasn’t disappointed in the past because Christine has a child now. Does it make sense?
I’d say: ‘I would be…’ or ‘…if you hadn’t have a child’, though the last part seems senseless for they hadn’t known each other before they met.

Appreciate any help.
Thanks a lot!

Rusty
08-23-2006, 04:59 PM
I need help with conditionals.
Movie ‘About a boy’ (based on the book by Nick Hornby)
Veneer : the first date
Will and Christine don’t know anything about each other and are meeting for the first time.
C: - There’s something you don’t know about me.
W: - Something exciting?
C: -I have a three-year-old boy.
W: -I would have been disappointed if you didn’t have a child.

What does the last sentence mean? Does Will imagine (or try to stress) that at some time in the past he intended to date a woman with a child? But then it means that Will wasn’t disappointed in the past because Christine has a child now. Does it make sense?
I’d say: ‘I would be…’ or ‘…if you hadn’t have a child’, though the last part seems senseless for they hadn’t known each other before they met.

Appreciate any help.
Thanks a lot! I think Will means that when he met Christine he hoped that she might be a person who already had a family.

Heba
08-23-2006, 05:26 PM
I think Will means that he expected Christine to have a child/children(judging from her age or appearance, perhaps?) and would have been disapointed if she hadn't.

...hadn’t have..

There is no such verb construct as "hadn't have".

ninafe
08-24-2006, 03:35 AM
Ops! What I was thinking? Of course it must have been written ‘…hadn’t had’

It’s clearer now.
The problem is solved.
Thanks for help!