Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

So - "With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfield."

It is not the case now that "I should like to have taken a stroll" - because I now have antagonistic feelings concerning J.
But it is the case that then (in 1995) - when I was still fond - I should have liked to have had the chance of a stroll when he was alive in 1993.

I take your point about 'I should like...' possibly not being appropriate.

But you have subtly changed the meaning of the second part, I think. You have introduced a third time-period, that in which you might have had the chance of doing what you didn't do - which must of course precede your doing or not doing whatever it was.

Or is the third time-period always there in your scenario?

[Flosshilde]

It has a particular resonance with me as I had an argument stretching over months on another board with someone who disagreed with Fowler that the perfect infinitive was unnecessary in cases such as these, but claimed that, on the contrary, if Thackeray had written With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to take a stroll in the hayfield he would have meant something substantially and identifiably different from what he meant when he actually wrote With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfield.

Well, I hope that whoever it was was a good lay.

[vinteuil]

I take your point about 'I should like...' possibly not being appropriate.

But you have subtly changed the meaning of the second part, I think. You have introduced a third time-period, that in which you might have had the chance of doing what you didn't do - which must of course precede your doing or not doing whatever it was.

Or is the third time-period always there in your scenario?

... in a way the "third time-period" is a red-herring: J is dead, so it's an elegaic regret for what had even then become an impossibility - "With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfield."

[jean]

... in a way the "third time-period" is a red-herring...

But isn't it vital?

Otherwise why not I should have liked to take... since my desires, and my failure to put them into effect, were simultaneous?

(This of course is what Fowler and the writer of the Wiki article think is usually all you need.)

[vinteuil]

But isn't it vital?

Otherwise why not I should have liked to take... since my desires, and my failure to put them into effect, were simultaneous?

... ah, but I don't think here the desire and failure were simultaneous: it is the desire to have been, in 1995, the person who might at that time have had the regret at the previous possibility of strolling in 1993, no longer possible in 1995.

But it could have been a more generalized, less specific, regret that in 1995 certain things were no longer possible; regret always implying an anterior state.

[french frank]

That's exactly Fowler's point, I think.

But Fowler also has an entry which describes the use of 'normal sequence' and 'vivid sequence'.

He explained what relativity meant (normal)
He explained what relativity means (vivid)

Here he comments: "The point to be noticed is that the change of tense or mood is normal s[equence], and the keeping of it unchanged (called vivid s[equence] above) is, though common and often preferable, abnormal."

He also notes that some (perhaps) 'incorrect' uses of the perfect infinitive have become so common as to be 'idiomatic' (and therefore 'preferable'?), introducing another consideration.

So I'm not sure whether looking for a 'real' difference (as in an intended difference) is worthwhile since (possibly) short of interrogating the speaker minutely you'll never know. And the speaker probably won't know either.

Wrong, incorrect, abnormal, normal, preferable, incorrect-but-idiomatic: if you can follow that thread to a clear conclusion you'll deserve a

[jean]

So I'm not sure whether looking for a 'real' difference (as in an intended difference) is worthwhile since (possibly) short of interrogating the speaker minutely you'll never know. And the speaker probably won't know either.

That was exactly my position in the discussion I've referred to.

I wish you'd been there!

I'm not entirely sure that this is sequence-of-tenses as normally understood. I can't quite work our why I'm not sure.

[jean]

... it is the desire to have been, in 1995, the person who might at that time have had the regret at the previous possibility of strolling in 1993, no longer possible in 1995.

And then there's now, when I'm speaking. So three time-periods.

Whether their existence could be understood from that form of words alone, I'm not sure.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

.

Dramatis Personæ : me, my one-time friend J

Surely it should be: "I", rather than "me", as it's the implied complement of "Dramatis Personæ".

[french frank]

I'm not entirely sure that this is sequence-of-tenses as normally understood. I can't quite work our why I'm not sure.

Isn't the (only?) alternative that it's semantic? That would imply that people are - at least more often than not - aware of a difference when they choose one form rather than another. (I've just altered the tenses from past to present in that last sentence ... I don't know why )

[vinteuil]

Surely it should be: "I", rather than "me", as it's the implied complement of "Dramatis Personæ".

No. "Me" here is disjunctive, not accusative. As in "It's me"; or in French "C'est moi".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disjunctive_pronoun

[Nick Armstrong]

No. "Me" here is disjunctive, not accusative

You are on fire these days, vinfortifié

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No. "Me" here is disjunctive, not accusative. As in "It's me"; or in French "C'est moi".

It's still grammatically incorrect. This is Pedant's Paradise, not Fowler's Foibles.

The French version is interesting though, as is "n'est-ce pas" (innit).

[vinteuil]

It's still grammatically incorrect.

Why do you think so?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Me and 'im were goin' behind the bike sheds for a fag.

The complement of the verb "to be" is nominative". And the nominative 1st person pronouns are "I" and "we".