Learn English – Meaning: “Angular is what HTML **would have been had it been** designed for applications”

conditional-constructionsmeaningsentence-structure

I was reading the Angular.js documentation when I saw this:

Angular is what HTML would have been had it been designed for
applications.

I've never seen a construction like this and I can't get neither the meaning nor the structure that is been used.

Could you explain it?

Best Answer

The sentence is a way of saying:

Angular is what HTML would have been if it had been designed for applications.

In general, phrases of the form "if [noun] [helping verb] [verb]" can be rewritten as "[helping verb] [noun] [verb]".

EDIT: As Colleen pointed out in her comment, helping verbs are also commonly called auxiliary verbs.

Examples:

  • If I had been there, I could have stopped it. -> Had I been there, I could have stopped it.
  • If John were taller, he could play basketball. -> Were John taller, he could play basketball.
  • If the dog would jump, he could escape. -> Would the dog jump, he could escape.
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