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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: November 6th, 2023

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  • Nope, those mean different things!

    If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t post it

    Means (or implies)…

    “I didn’t like it, so I won’t post it”, but it’s phrased as a conditional statement.

    It also means that it’s hypothetical – nothing was posted!

    But…

    If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have posted it

    Means (or implies)…

    “I like it, so I posted it”, again phrased as a conditional statement.

    It also means that the thing actually happened (because the commenter liked it).

    So they have similar, but different meanings. The key difference is whether the commenter is saying they have already posted something or not. One is hypothetical, and the other is more of a reflection of something that did happen.

    Also, I think this part of your comment is incorrect.

    Should not it be

    This should be…

    Shouldn’t it be

    (This is what people say probably 99% of the time)

    Or

    Should it not be

    (This is less common and more formal)

    And yes, I know that it looks like the “not” should be directly after the “should” because of “shouldn’t”, but it doesn’t happen that way. I think this happens when forming a question with conditional verbs (should/would/could), but I have no idea why.

    As I’m sure you know, English is crazy. Sorry about that. Hope this helps!