[Ads-l] Trumpian future conditional

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Fri Feb 19 11:11:34 UTC 2016


In case you missed Donald Trump's response to Pope Francis...

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-response-to-the-pope
"If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows
is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have
only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President
because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated
unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action
politicians."

I tackle the truly remarkable first sentence in this Language Log
post, linking back to a 2013 ADS-L discussion of "would have"
featuring JL, LH, and AZ:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=24173

--bgz

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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