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Yeah, yeah. Microsoft would have been willing to buy it, too. . . . I don't know for $19 billion, but the company's extremely valuable.

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From the context I can understand that Microsoft wanted to buy WhatsApp before Facebook did, but I can't understand the grammar. Can someone explain to me please?

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    "I don't know for $19 billion, but the company's extremely valuable." is conversational, it's not a grammatically correct sentence.
    – Kris
    Mar 14, 2014 at 11:40
  • I was mainly concern the first part of the sentence.
    – TIKSN
    Mar 18, 2014 at 0:27

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A chunk of the second sentence has been elided. It is more than one would expect in a work of scholarship, but clearly this was no 'work of scholarship'.

'I don't know (if they would have been willing to buy it) for $19 billion...'

I think I would have gone part way, and said 'I don't know if they would have paid $19 billion...'

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  • 'I don't know (if we would have been willing to buy it) for $19 billion'
    – msam
    Mar 14, 2014 at 11:50
  • I can't understand the grammar of ... would have been willing ....
    – TIKSN
    Mar 18, 2014 at 0:29
  • @TIKSN For the 'would have been (verb continuous/ gerund)' construction, we can ask on English Language Learners
    – Kris
    Mar 18, 2014 at 5:48
  • It is more about usage rather than learning.
    – TIKSN
    Mar 19, 2014 at 7:35

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