|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Which of these, and why? (or why not?):
- I would have liked to have helped.
- I would have liked to help.
- I would like to have helped.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
All three seem acceptable, but applicable to different timing of problem and opportunities to help.
The first would mean you learned of problem too late to do anything.
The second would mean you would have been willing to help, but were not asked to do so.
The third would be mean you regret not having been asked tohelp.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I completely agree with your first two definitions, Bill, but I don't think the third is really acceptable as nit-pickingly-formal, written English - although you would get away with it easily in spoken or casual written English.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I agree w/ RC, I think; and, I lurve your subject title! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear RC: I agree that the third version is clumsy, but I can imagine saying it.
"They are friends of mine. I would like to have helped, but didn't get the chance to do so.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
I agree w/ RC,And I agree w/ Moon Pie. I mean Bill. (Sorry, that was a silly joke, and I mean was literally.) No matter. RC, what manner of word construction would you assemble to approach Bill's meaning # 3. Remember RC, meaning over form.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
So, I'd like to help with an answer, yet, I could care less, but...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555 |
I'd plump for 'b'. 'c' confuses future and past; and 'a' has a lot of redundant usage in it- 2 'haves' with 2 pasts
I'd go with 'b' or with a totally different construction such as: I would have liked to have been of help
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I would have liked to have responded, but I liked to respond clearly, so I didn't respond at all. I would have liked to respond unequivocably.
Just fooling around in the above. I would like to have helped, but don't imagine I have.
I'm with wwh and milum: meaning's the thing. With a dash of nuance.
I like the thread title, too.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555 |
An aye for the title too from my end.
I wonder if WW meant my earlier post; went back and read it and it did read somewhat at sixes and sevens. Here's what I meant:
a: sentence formation seems redundant to me; what jars is the use of the word 'have' twice and both times in the past tense
c: confuses the future tense (would like) with the past tense (helped)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I liked to die when I read some of these.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Faldage: Seriously, I trhough "like" in that bit of country dialecct was not a verb.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
I liked to die when I read some of these.
Good to hear you're over it.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Not seriously though: In reply to:
I liked to die when I read some of these.
More Southern would be:
"I liked to have died when I read some of these."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
And the Irrelevant Argument of the Year Award goes to:
Dub'Dub for
More Southern would be:
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
I think a) sounds like a product of the Department of Redundancy Department. B) and c) sound as if they mean the same and say it much more clearly than a), where the speaker seems to be stuck in a time warp. Maybe in several at once.
I thought it was LIKE to have died, not LIKED.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
The d of liked gets assimilated into the t of to. It's usually used speaking of something that happened in the past. ¿Qué no?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
Yeah, I always think of it as past tense, but I just never hear the "d". But I almost never get to hear that expression any more, living in hyperurbanized Atlanta. Land sakes, I reckon I should high tail it down to Griffin. I'm fixin to forget my idiom.
Wait a minute. I'm a midwesterner.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I just never hear the "d"
Well, yeah. It's assimilated into the to. Try pronouncing each with all the distinctitude of your typical rural southerner and tell me how different they sound.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
In reply to:
It's assimilated into the to.
Another Faldagian expression to drop at the next cocktail party.
By the way, Faldage, if it's so irrelevant, why's you and birdseed talking about it?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
member
|
|
member
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
"By the way, Faldage, if it's so irrelevant, why's you and birdseed talking about it?"
Because it's so danged irrelevant! Don't you know NUTHIN' about overeducated people?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
if it's so irrelevant,
Ain't the d in liked that's irrelevant.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
hyperurbanized
I think that word should become 'hypurbanized'... What's that word for dropping a syllable?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
> hyperurbanized
I think that word should become 'hypurbanized'
I don't. Hypurbanised sounds too much like hyperbole to my ears. Retaining that extra syllable seems to make its meaning much clearer. At least, that's the way it looks up here.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
The d of liked gets assimilated into the t of to. It's usually used speaking of something that happened in the past. ~ faldageMaybeso, but that is the way english will be talked in the far future, so listen... I like ta died when I heard faldage yankee-talk about a " d " being swallowed up by a " t ". Double damn talk and snake tongue devils, don't the man know that the " t " has already to much to do, " ta " being a contraction of " to have", the use of " like" rather than " liked" is simply a " temporal allusion" that brings life (by way of immediacy) to the idiom, which " ta " restores to the proper tense. Geez! Sometimes I get so upset I cuss in yankee-talk. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I think that word should become 'hypurbanized'
I don't. Hypurbanised sounds too much like hyperbole to my ears. Retaining that extra syllable seems to make its meaning much clearer. At least, that's the way it looks up here. Oh, finally finally FINALLY--*I* made a joke and *you* didn't get it!  I will add on, and say that you need to say it hypurbanized, not hyperbanized, so people can tell the difference! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
you need to say it hypurbanized, not hyperbanized, so people can tell the difference!
Parbly it needs that certain special Loouhv'lle accent to work.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
that certain special Loouhv'lle accent
Hey, you got it right! :-) Not everybody can, that's fer shur.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
got it right!
For which I can thank Col. Bob. I still don't have a clue as to the difference between the pronunciations of hyperbanized and hypurbanized.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Faldage [elbow nudge],
I think Jackie just might be pulling your patootie.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
>Oh, finally finally FINALLY--*I* made a joke and *you* didn't get it!
It's the heat, that's my excuse - temperatures hanging around 30 are lovely, but they fuse both my synapses together.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I think Jackie just might be pulling your patootie. Hey, thanks for the invite--even if it did come after the fact!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555 |
And so, finally, what is it then?
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,342
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
1 members (A C Bowden),
389
guests, and
2
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
