"will have" = "must have; did"

John Doe hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Nov 21 01:08:44 UTC 2013


On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> So "would have died" isn't a possibility. "Must have died" or simply
> "died" is what he means.
>

Of course. I agree entirely. My only purpose is to point out an older
non-standard structure that, to me, sounds perfectly all right for
colloquial *speech* amongst the bruz, though not for any form of writing,
especially not on this august listserv, despite the fact that, sometime, I
be subject to be funning with y'all. OTOH, I find the use of "will" in the
environment cited to be *extremely* disturbing! ;-)

Yes, to me, "would have died" really does sound perfectly ordinary. I even
have the feeling that the use of "would" even makes semantic sense.Off the
top of my head, though, I can't explain it. Maybe that feeling is due only
to a lifetime of hearing it, heyna?

BTW, Gmail has made clear to me that I absolutely *MUST* provide a *name*
by which *anything* that I post *anywhere* on the Web can be searched and
indexed by Google, in case that a "friend may wish to locate" me. Yeah,
right. I tried to give them a number and take away my name, but they
wouldn't go for it. They were cool with "John Doe," so I went for it. Why
not? Fuck 'em.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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