would have been = "was"

[Jonathan Lighter]

We've discussed the chiefly British use of this phrase to mean "must have been," but now I find it used evidently to mean "was":

  1988 Dougal Dixon _The Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia_ (London: Octopus) 64: Big as it was, _Brachiosaurus_ would not have been the biggest brachiosaurid. The remains of even bigger and heavier creatures have been discovered in Colorado, USA.

  The author, born in 1947, holds two degrees in geology from St. Andrews U.

  A skeleton of _Brachiosaurus_ adorns one concourse of O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. It's big.

  JL


---------------------------------
Need Mail bonding?
Go to the Yahoo! Mail Q&A for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org