[Ads-l] Trumpian future conditional

[Neal Whitman]

I think I'm with the guy you quoted in the LL post. I don't think Trump 
meant "will have wished" at some point before the time in question. I 
think Trump is saying that at that hypothetical time when Trump is not 
president as ISIS have attacked the Vatican, at that time he "will wish" 
(or even "will be wishing") that Trump had been elected. In any case, 
great response to an eminently blog-post-worthy piece of political language!

Neal

On 2/19/2016 6:11 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Trumpian future conditional
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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-- 
Dr. Neal Whitman
Lecturer, ESL Composition
School of Teaching and Learning
College of Education and Human Ecology
Arps Hall
1945 North High Street
whitman.11 at osu.edu
(614) 260-1622


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