could have been an email
- idiom
- Informal
:
esto podría haber sido un correo electrónico
- Honestly, most of these weekly check-ins could have been an email instead of taking up our afternoon.
Examples
-
This meeting could have been an email!
-
That hour-long conference could have been an email and saved everyone a lot of time.
-
After sitting through the entire presentation, I realized it could have been an email.
-
I feel that this discussion could have been an email.
-
After sitting through the entire presentation, I realized it could have been an email.
-
Honestly, most of these weekly check-ins could have been an email instead of taking up our afternoon.
-
That hour-long conference could have been an email and saved everyone a lot of time.
Antonyms
How Necessary
50
2.4
∞
1.0
947
1.0
- Informal
300
1.6
126
2.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
could + have + be + an + e-mail
The phrase is compositionally built from 'could have been' (past possibility) + 'an email' (alternative communicative medium), so a B1 learner who knows those words can infer that the meeting might have been unnecessary because the information could instead have been sent by email. While there is a pragmatic critical stance implied, the propositional meaning is directly derivable from the constituents and follows common cross-linguistic patterns of expressing counterfactual/possibility judgments about alternative formats.
Etymology
Could have been an email imagines a long meeting where all the talk could simply be written in a short email. So when people say it, they mean the meeting was 'unnecessary' and the information could have been shared faster by email.