Past Subjunctive

[Neal Whitman]

As I noted in an episode I wrote for Grammar Girl, the _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_ series by Jeff Kinney regularly forms past-time counterfactuals with the simple past tense rather than the past perfect. I don't like it, and I too would choose "wish I had been told".

As for the original question, FWIW, I'm going with CGEL's stance of calling the tenses past and past perfect, used with the function of modal remoteness.

Neal

On Jul 2, 2012, at 6:14 PM, "Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700"<lynne.hunter at NAVY.MIL> wrote:

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> Poster:       "Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700"
>              <lynne.hunter at NAVY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Past Subjunctive
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2012 2:33 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Past Subjunctive
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>              American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Past Subjunctive
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> -------
>
> On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com>
> wrote:
>> Things I Wish I Were Told
>
> My vote goes to
>
> Things I Wish I Had Been Told
>
> ...But there've been many shifts in opinion, since then...
>
>
> -Wilson
>
> Which evidently account for book titles like _If the Buddha Dated_.
>
> Lynne Hunter
>
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