166 CHAPTER 4. PARTICLESany ambiguity, because you’re asserting a fact. Since is acting as a logi-
cal ’and’, statements involving don’t concern opinion, hearsay, or guess-
work, they state plain and simple true fact, so the following is correct use
of :”Without an umbrella, you’ll get wet when it rains.”
But this next sentence is simply wrong:”If it rains, we’ll get wet.”
The reason this second example is wrong is because expresses a
universally true fact. However, if you have an umbrella, or you’re indoors,
or you might be in any one of a number of situations in which it is raining
but you don’t get wet, this sentence is simply false, and as such stating it
as a universal fact is plain wrong. Usually students will mistakenly use
in this way when what they really want to say is something pertaining
to a particular, specific situation. For instance, if you’re looking out the
window, and you know you have no umbrella with you, you might want
to say ”if it starts raining now, I’ll get wet”, with the implication that this
will happen if you go outside, not that you’ll magically get wet inside if it
starts to rain outside. Instead of using , these kind of musings require
the use of or conditionals:
”I guess if it starts raining I’ll get wet”
with the / endings signalling that you’re saying something
rhetorical, but you’d like whoever is listening to acknowledge you anyway.
This factual consequence is also found in unfinished sentences such
as the following:literally: ”Not leaving now (means...)”
”[I/you/he/she/we/they] have to go.”literally: ”Not doing so (means ...)”
”[I/you/he/she/we/they] have to do so.”
These sentences are unfinished in the sense that they omit the – con-
textually obvious – generally negative consequences of the ”not doing” of