[Ads-l] Odd sequence of tenses

[Jonathan Lighter]

"If he'd've..." sounds perfectly normal and familiar to me - like since
childhood - though I wouldn't use it in formal situations.

JL

On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 3:01 AM Ben Yagoda <byagoda at udel.edu> wrote:

> Thank you, Laurence. I’ll add my impression that in sports talk, the
> sports present is waning. One thing it’s being replaced by is what is
> apparently referred to as a plupluperfect construction. I associate it with
> the Fox football commentator Troy Aikman, e.g.: “If he’d’ve caught that
> ball, the Patriots would be right in this game.”
>
> Now, the ‘d in the (hypothetical) example is ambiguous. Could stand for
> the pretty common conditional variation “would,” as in Bruce Springsteen’s
> “Bobby Jean”: "I wish I would have known…”
>
> But I prefer to think it stands for “had”; that is, “If he had have caught
> that ball.”
>
> Searching around for examples on the web, I came on nothing by Aikman, but
> I did find this <
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276082798_If_I_Had_Have_Been_On_the_Web>
> 2012 paper investigating the plupluperfect construction. And also this from
> The Great Gatsby, in which a Ring Lardneresque “of” replaces “have."
> Gatsby’s father is talking at his son’s funeral: '"If he'd of lived he'd of
> been a great man. A man like [Midwest railroad tycoon] James J. Hill.”
>
> Ben
>
> > On Oct 14, 2021, at 6:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system <
> LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Date:    Wed, 13 Oct 2021 11:00:41 -0400
> > From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU <mailto:
> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>>
> > Subject: Re: Odd Sequence of Tenses
> >
> > Huzzah! No modesty needed, Ben. 12 years before David Carkeet’s “On
> Language” column in the NYT Mag,
> https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/23/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-72300-on-language-batting-the-breeze.html
> <
> https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/23/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-72300-on-language-batting-the-breeze.html>,
> that doesn’t cite your earlier finding and dubbing.  If Carkeet cites you
> in his 2000 “On Language” piece, the world is a fairer place (and maybe I
> begin a data-exchanging correspondence with you 33 years ago instead of
> with him 21 years ago).  On the other hand, Carkeet has published a couple
> of novels with linguists as (anti-)heroes, so I don’t want to be too tough
> on him.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >> On Oct 13, 2021, at 2:48 AM, Ben Yagoda <byagoda at UDEL.EDU <mailto:
> byagoda at UDEL.EDU>> wrote:
> >>
> >> I will immodestly note that I named and identified the “sports present”
> back in 1988:
> https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/magazine/on-language-tense-talk.html <
> https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/magazine/on-language-tense-talk.html><
> https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/magazine/on-language-tense-talk.html <
> https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/magazine/on-language-tense-talk.html>>
> >>
> >> Ben
>
>
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>


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