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I have searched many online dictionaries but I cannot find structure like this:
I remembered Dad saying it could just as easy be us.
So, Could you explain to me what the meaning is?
The full text is here:
There was one thing I still didn’t understand: Why had federal agents surrounded Randy Weaver’s cabin in the first place? Why had Randy been targeted? I remembered Dad saying it could just as easy be us. Dad was always saying that one day the Government would come after folks who resisted its brainwashing, who didn’t put their kids in school. For thirteen years, I’d assumed that this was why the Government had come for Randy: to force his children into school.
Educated by Tara Westover
Peace
Posted 2018-06-04T09:05:15.880
Reputation: 4 816
The events the author is referring to are past tense, so a more grammatically accurate version would be "It could just as easily have been us." Informal English is pretty flexible about this, of course. – Graham – 2018-06-04T12:37:02.400
3@Graham You would be correct if you were making the statement now and referring to the past. But in the passage the author is actually quoting the past. – Astralbee – 2018-06-04T13:11:19.127
@Astralbee actually either works. It's hard to tell whether this is a direct or an indirect quote, and indirect quotes are routinely backshifted. Either way I agree it's an "eggcorn" for something. – Andrew – 2018-06-04T14:59:16.217
1@Andrew They are both grammatically correct, but the writer "remembered Dad saying" it, and if Dad said it in the present tense ("that could be us") then that is what he would recall in the present. In both the examples I created I used "could have been", but look at the context of the OP's example. They were looking at someone else's house being surrounded/raided. It was ongoing, so at the time they would have said "it could just as easily be us [getting raided]". – Astralbee – 2018-06-04T15:18:47.497
2@Astralbee ah, well see that's the kind of sound logical thinking that makes perfect sense ... and yet native speakers ignore it time and again. *"I remembered Dad saying it could have been us"* would pass completely unremarked as a standard, backshifted, indirect quote. – Andrew – 2018-06-04T15:28:30.707
Unfortunately, the adverb seems to be dead. Too many times people will use adjectives when adverbs ought to be used. – Octopus – 2018-06-04T15:35:16.827
1@Astralbee If it was a direct quote, it would have quote marks around it. If it doesn't, these aren't the exact words spoken by Da, so the author is (now) summarising something about the past in their own words. So past tense would be more formally correct. Informally of course it's no big deal either way - and the OP's quote is clearly written informally enough to include a colloquial misuse of "easy"/"easily". (Whether that misuse itself is a direct quote from Dad or how the author talks, of course we can't know from this.) – Graham – 2018-06-04T15:38:04.153
@Andrew On further consideration I think there is a marked difference. In any tense, "could have been us" would imply that there was some decision or choice made in the past that led to the event happening to somebody else instead; whereas "could be us" has the possibility that it could yet happen to us. That isn't what the OP was about, it was understanding the phrase and I think we've covered that. – Astralbee – 2018-06-04T15:39:07.357
1@Graham I didn't say it was a "direct quote". I don't need quotes to say that I remember my dad telling me that his childhood pet was a dog. And I wouldn't say that his childhood pet is a dog, nor would my dad have used "is" because the dog was long dead. Whether quoting directly or referring to something you were told, the tense of their statement would remain as it was told once you have established that you are quoting from the past. – Astralbee – 2018-06-04T15:41:01.730