i wish i can do...
chance
in the citation as follows?
http://www.ammado.com/company/ammado-asia-pacific/videos/2272
Marius Hancu
"could" required instead of "can"
Lars Eighner
talented chance broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> What do yo mkae of 'I wish I can do...' repeated
> in the citation as follows?
> http://www.ammado.com/company/ammado-asia-pacific/videos/2272
I will not fire up a GUI to get to a browser that can view the video.
"I wish I could do" is the idiomatic expression, appropriate for every
situation I can imagine. The first-pronoun "I" is always capitalized. This
was meant to keep it from being mistaken for a stray pen stroke or missed
altogether in handwriting. Capitalizing it is not a sign of egotism, but
lowercasing it is likely to be taken as false humility or silliness.
"I hope I can do" is also idiomatic.
It is not possible for me to tell from this title whether "wish" has been
used when "hope" was appropriate or "can" has been used when "could" was
appropriate.
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> September 5931, 1993
309 days since Rick Warren prayed over Bush's third term.
Obama: No hope, no change, more of the same. Yes, he can, but no, he won't.
Lars Eighner
talented chance broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> What do yo mkae of 'I wish I can do...' repeated
> in the citation as follows?
> http://www.ammado.com/company/ammado-asia-pacific/videos/2272
I will not fire up a GUI to get to a browser that can view the video.
"I wish I could do" is the idiomatic expression, appropriate for every
situation I can imagine. The first-person pronoun "I" is always
Richard Chambers
"chance" asked
> What do yo mkae of 'I wish I can do...' repeated in the citation as
> follows?
>
> http://www.ammado.com/company/ammado-asia-pacific/videos/2272
>
This appears to be Asian-Pacific English for "I would like to be able to
...".
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
CDB
> "chance" asked
>
>> What do yo mkae of 'I wish I can do...' repeated in the citation as
>> follows?
>>
>> http://www.ammado.com/company/ammado-asia-pacific/videos/2272
>
> This appears to be Asian-Pacific English for "I would like to be
> able to ...".
What's interesting is that the girl's accent appears to be that of a
native BrE speaker. Maybe she has picked up the idiom living abroad,
or maybe the closeness of sound between "c'd do" and "c'n do" (I had
to listen closely to some parts of the clip to be sure she was saying
"c'n") is easing yet another step away from the British use of the
subjunctive.
chance
"CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:hem6im$n9c$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Whether it is limited to the British use of the subjunctive or not,
I wonder if there was'nt in the first place something wrong
with the parting of verb forms into the indicative, subjunctive
and imperative mood. The past form of a verb intrinsically denotes
an indirect way of expressing something, irrespective of its function
of the tense past. For example, 'would' in the modal usage
has nothing to do with the past in tense, albeit it denotes
an indirect way of speech, compared to the direct way of speech,
represented by 'will', if it were.
Have you ever recently watched by any chance
'Dibo' of Playhouse Disney?
DIbo invariably asks, 'What is your wish?'
Then, Annie, Crow, Bunny or Ello answers,
'I wish I can...' or something along the line,
more often than not.
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> Whether it is limited to the British use of the subjunctive or not,
> I wonder if there was'nt in the first place something wrong
> with the parting of verb forms into the indicative, subjunctive
> and imperative mood.
If there was something wrong with the inflection of verbs to indicate
mood (to the extent that it ever did and still does), it wouldn't have
happened.
> The past form of a verb intrinsically denotes
> an indirect way of expressing something, irrespective of its function
> of the tense past.
I don't understand this, and I doubt that you do. The past tense
ordinarily indicates that an event occurred in the past. It may in
certain inflections be identical with other forms in other moods, but
then it isn't really the form of the past tense -- it indicates
something other than the past tense even though it has the same form
as the past tense. The "were" of "If I were king ..." is in the same
form as the plural past tense of "be," but it is the singular and
plural of the subjunctive, and it is not necessarily in the past tense
at all.
This is clearer in more inflected languages, in which there are many
cases when forms are identical but usages differ.
> For example, 'would' in the modal usage
> has nothing to do with the past in tense, albeit it denotes
> an indirect way of speech, compared to the direct way of speech,
> represented by 'will', if it were.
To the best of my knowlege, it has nothing to do with direct vs.
indirect. Again, this makes no sense to me.
> Have you ever recently watched by any chance
> 'Dibo' of Playhouse Disney?
No. Can't say I've missed it.
>
> DIbo invariably asks, 'What is your wish?'
> Then, Annie, Crow, Bunny or Ello answers,
> 'I wish I can...' or something along the line,
> more often than not.
I can't deny this, since I have never seen the show. But I have my
doubts.
--
Bob Lieblich
Doing his stretching exercises
chance
"Robert Lieblich" <r_s_li...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:4B0F5D50...@yahoo.com...
Remember when I have desisted from beating the dead horse.