The language of looking back at a fork
Think of a decision you made before you were twenty-five that would have produced a different life. Not a dramatic one. A door you did not open.
Hold it. First, what people actually say about those.
Eight things people say about roads not taken. Match each to what it actually claims.
A decision at twenty-two
The place I turned down
I turned down a place at a university in another country when I was twenty-two. I have thought about it more than is reasonable.
If I had gone, I would be a different person now — not a better one, necessarily, but the sentence is still true. I would probably speak a third language. I would almost certainly not have met my wife, which is the fact that ends the argument every time, and which I reach for slightly too quickly.
I wish I had asked more questions before deciding. That is a smaller regret than it sounds. I did not need better information; I needed to know that the decision was a decision, rather than a form to fill in.
I wish I knew what I would have been like. That is not the same wish, and I notice it is the one that keeps me awake.
My father says that if I were the kind of person who left, I would have left. He means it kindly. It is also the most annoying sentence anybody has ever said to me, because I cannot tell whether it is a description or a verdict.
Five questions. The first two are about the writer; the rest are about the shapes he uses.
1. What is the difference between his two wishes?
2. Why does his father’s sentence annoy him?
3. If I had gone, I would be a different person now. What is unreal in each half?
4. I wish I knew. Is this sentence about the past?
5. If I were the kind of person who left, I would have left. Which way round is this one?
Two distances, one form
What a past form can be marking
| Sentence | Distance in time? | Distance from reality? |
|---|---|---|
| I went to Coimbra in 2019. | Yes | No — it happened |
| If I went now, I’d miss the meeting. | No — it is about now | Yes — I am not going |
| I wish I knew. | No — it is about now | Yes — I do not know |
| It’s time you went home. | No — it is about now | Yes — you have not gone |
| I’d rather you didn’t. | No | Yes — you are about to |
| If I had gone, … | Yes | Yes — both distances at once |
One form, two jobs. English has no separate subjunctive to reach for, so it reuses the past. Portuguese does have one — se eu tivesse, se eu fosse — which means the machinery is familiar and the signal is not.
The only surviving trace of an English subjunctive is were: if I were you, if she were here. Was is also heard and is not wrong in speech; were is what writing expects.
Six lines of the reflection, out of order. Put them back into the order that argues rather than lists.
- What I actually needed was to know that it was a decision at all.
- If I had gone, I would be a different person now.
- I wish I knew what I would have been like, and that is the one that keeps me awake.
- I turned down a place abroad when I was twenty-two.
- I wish I had asked more questions before deciding.
- I would almost certainly not have met my wife, which is how the argument usually ends.
Which distance, and where
Six gaps. Choose the form that matches the distance the sentence is marking.
If I the job in Berlin, I living somewhere very cold now. I I had asked what the winters were like. My sister, who did take it, says that if she the kind of person who minded cold, she never have applied. I wish I what she knows about herself.
Seven sentences. One error each.
1. I wish I would know the answer.
2. If I would have gone, I would be different now.
3. I wish I studied medicine when I had the chance. — a past regret
4. If I had taken that job, I would have been living in Berlin now.
5. I wish I can speak three languages.
6. If I was you, I would ask her directly. — in writing
7. I wish that I have more time.
The door you did not open
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each, twice
Tell your partner about the decision you thought of at the start — and about the person it stopped you from becoming.
Three minutes. Then your partner gives you two numbers, and you do it again.
- Say what the decision was, and how old you were.
- Say what would be different now if you had chosen the other way.
- Say one thing you wish you had done at the time, and one thing you wish you knew now.
- Finish with whether it is a regret or simply a question you cannot close.
Listener’s job. Two tallies, nothing else.
1 · Sentences where the imagined result is in the past — I would have…
2 · Sentences where the imagined result is in the present — I would be…, I would speak…
Read the two numbers back at the end. Do not explain them.
What three minutes produced
Five sentences of the kind this task produces. Fix each.
1. If I would have studied law, I would have a different job now.
2. I wish I would have gone.
3. If I had stayed there, I would have been happier now.
4. I wish I am more patient with my parents.
5. If I didn’t take that job, I would not have met her.
Distance, not time
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. What is the past form doing in I wish I knew?
2. In If I had gone, I would be different now, how many distances are marked?
3. Where does would never appear?
Next. Four people reflecting on lives they did not have — and what balanced regret sounds like when it is neither performance nor denial.