Eight wishes, and what each one is doing
Eight sentences that all look like the same structure. Read each one and ask a single question about it: who could change this?
Eight sentences. Match each to what it is actually doing.
One verb, three jobs
And one sentence that turns out to be impossible
I wish I were taller. I wish I had said something. I wish you would stop doing that. Three sentences, one verb, and three things that have almost nothing in common except the word wish.
The first expects no reply. Nobody is being asked for anything, nothing could be done, and if you said it to a friend they would not treat it as a request. It is a lament, and its only function is to say how you feel about a fact.
The second points at a single moment. Somewhere behind it is a room, a conversation, and a thing that did not get said, and the sentence contains an accusation — of the speaker, by the speaker. That is why regrets are uncomfortable to say aloud in a way that laments are not.
The third is not a wish at all. It is a complaint, and it is addressed to somebody. Say it to a person who is doing the thing and watch what happens: it works as a request that has given up on being polite. I wish it would rain is the same sentence with the complaint pointed at the weather, which is why it sounds slightly comic.
Now the puzzle, and you will feel it before you can explain it. Three of these four are ordinary English and one is impossible. I wish I could drive. I wish I knew the answer. I wish they would answer their emails. I wish I would study more. Which one, and — harder — why?
Four questions.
1. Which of the four is impossible?
2. What is wish + would doing?
3. So why can it not take I as its subject?
4. Why is I wish I could drive fine?
The three shapes, and six sentences that mix them up
The three shapes, one line each.
Lament — a present state. wish + past simple. I wish I knew. I wish I had more time. (were for every person in careful writing: I wish I were taller.)
Regret — a past event. wish + past perfect. I wish I had said something.
Complaint — somebody else, ongoing. wish + would. I wish they would answer.
Ability — any person. wish + could. I wish I could drive.
And one form that does not exist at all: I wish I would have told her. It is a very common written error and there is no context that rescues it.
Six sentences. One problem each.
1. I wish I would study more.
2. I wish I would have told her.
3. I wish I know the answer.
4. I wish they will answer their emails.
5. If only I would have left earlier.
6. I wish I am taller.
A story that was never sent
Eight gaps. Choose the form that fits what the speaker means.
I wrote a story when I was twenty-three and never sent it to anybody. I it — not because I think it was good, but because sending it was free and I did not do it. If only I one envelope. My flatmate at the time kept telling me to, and I to her. She edits a magazine now, and I it up quite so often, which is a complaint I have no right to make. The odd part is that I do not wish I a writer. I at twenty-three what I actually wanted, which is a different regret and a much commoner one. If only somebody me that not knowing was normal at that age. Anyway. I thinking about it, and I have not managed that either.
One word per gap. Eight wishes, sorted by who could change them.
I wish I what to say to people who have just had bad news.
If only she told me before the meeting rather than three days after it.
I wish they answer their emails; it has been three weeks now.
He wishes he gone, and he mentions it about once a month.
I wish I drive, because everything out here is forty minutes away.
If only it stop raining for one afternoon.
She wishes she taller, which is possibly the least useful wish available.
I wish I spent more time with him that year.
Six wishes, sorted
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 15 minutes
Six wishes about your own life, written before you know which form each one needs — and then sorted by somebody else.
Say each one. Your partner sorts it and names who could change it. The mismatches are the baseline.
- 5 minutes alone: write six wishes. Two about how things are, two about one moment that has passed, two aimed at somebody else. Do not edit the grammar.
- Then, in turns: say each one aloud. Your partner writes it down exactly as you said it.
- Partner sorts it: lament, regret or complaint — and says out loud who could change this?
- Count the mismatches: how many times did the form you used disagree with the job the sentence was doing? Write the number down.
Expect the regrets to be the hardest to say. A lament costs nothing — nobody is being accused of anything. A regret names a moment when you could have done something and did not, which is why people reach for the lament form instead: I wish I were braver is much easier to say than I wish I had said something.
What the sorting showed
Three questions.
1. Which of the three came out with the wrong form most often?
2. Did any of your wishes aimed at other people come out with will instead of would?
3. What single question sorted them fastest?
Who could change it
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What are the three jobs wish does?
2. Why is I wish I would study more impossible?
Next. Four texts about roads not taken — a piece of speculative fiction, a personal essay, a historian on why most counterfactuals are worthless, and a comment thread full of the worthless kind.