as if it had only just been discovered

[jutfrank]

Good question, and nicely asked.

The chunk 'it feels like', which is used to state a subjective impression you have, doesn't trigger a backshift. There's something in the meaning that has a sense of immediacy or realness, so it's usually followed by a first person clause in the present tense:

It feels like I've lived here my whole life.
It feels like I have no direction.
It feels like I'm slowly turning into a giant insect.
It feels like I'm coming down with something.

To keep the same meaning in each of those sentences, you could also use 'it feels as if' instead of ' it feels like'. Using the word 'if' doesn't change anything important and hence it doesn't require a subjunctive.

It can be used to talk about the past too, of course, and still the subjunctive is not used. Stay with the indicative:

It felt like I was flying.
*It felt like I were flying.

 

[EngLearner]

A year ago, a girl told her new boyfriend about her past experience with her ex. For some reason, what he heard hurt his feelings. She has apologized to him countless times, but he still can't get over it. The girl goes to a counsellor to seek advice on how to go forward in their relationship. She tells the counsellor everything, and then the counsellor says to her:

It's now been a year and he's still treating it as if you did it yesterday?

The example came up in a search that I did on this website. The article in which the example originally appeared was on this website (the article is still there, but it's been edited, so the example is no longer there). The verb "treat" is used before the words "as if" in this case just as in the banking example:

Banking doesn't get much duller than in Japan. The biggest banks there treat the internet as if it had been discovered just yesterday. Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

For that reason, I would've expected "...as if you had done it yesterday..." instead of "...as if you did it yesterday...". I wonder what your thoughts on this are.

 

[jutfrank]

So what's your latest conclusion?

 

[EngLearner]

So what's your latest conclusion?

I would've said this:

It's now been a year and he's still treating it as if you had done it yesterday?

I think the past perfect should be used because in reality the listener didn't do it yesterday.

 

[jutfrank]

Okay, yes, but as you've demonstrated, you will see natural examples where the past simple is preferred, for whatever reason that may be.

 

[EngLearner]

Since the example in post #22 was originally in the article and then was deleted when the article was edited, I thought that maybe the author realized that she'd made a mistake and decided to delete what she'd written originally.

 

[jutfrank]

I doubt it. Was it the only sentence that was deleted?

 

[EngLearner]

I doubt it. Was it the only sentence that was deleted?

No, she rewrote the whole article for some reason and changed a lot of things there.