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Conditional conundrum


A friend and I are having a debate about a most perplexing piece of English grammar. Now, I am a native English speaker, and he is Polish - this means that he is rather clued up on the grammatical side of things, whereas I know diddly squat, but know what feels right.


We were discussing Poland's next world cup match tomorrow, when Poland plays against Colombia, and I wrote to him after he me sent a heartwarming video (jokingly, of course), that 'I think threats of stoning if they don't succeed would be more effective.'


He replied that such a sentance should be in the second conditional tense, and thus go like 'I think threats of stoning if they didn't succeed would be more effective.'


So after a lively debate as to whether this is the second, first, or not even a conditional, I have no choice but to turn to the denizens of the interweb, to ask them to apply their grammatical expertise to resolve this vital question.


Thanks in advance, Conor




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