As a single, complete sentence, this does not work. However, if we view the sentence as incomplete, with a comma after the word occasion, then the above example would be fine. This usage is, of course, nothing more than an elegant conditional — compare the more prosaic ‘if help had been forthcoming’. Here we have another example of a word, ‘seldom’, that when used at the beginning of a sentence usually requires an inversion. The pro-form carries person and tense and provides a trace of the full verb or verb phrase.

Source: Bueno Aires Herald July 26, 2024 12:57 UTC