[Ads-l] antedating (?) of conditional "would have" = 'had'

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 7:44 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've always thought of this as a rather recent
> development.
>

Thangs be's that way. I've recently found out that one of my pettest
peeves, splitting an infinitive with "not," e.g.:

"to be or _to not be_"

as Shakespeare didn't put it - which struck me as being about a
quarter-century old, can be found in Wycliffe's Bible:

"Thou that prechist _to not stele_ stelist?"

Youneverknow.


-- 
-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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