English grammar

Question

Hello my sir,Thanks for answering my question.One more question I want to ask you. The below sentences are spoken words of native English speaker (American) and he is a professor of English in the USA.1) I wish my students would’ve had more walkouts when I was a university professor. I could have gone home early and not had to work.Why did not he use " had" insted of "would've in the sentence above?Kindly help on the sentence above .Thanks in advance.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

ritik1) I wish my students would’ve had more walkouts when I was a university professor. I could have gone home early and not had to work.
Why did not he use "had" instead of "would've" in the sentence above?

[ I moved your post because it was unrelated to the topic of the thread where you posted it. ]

In all probability, only the professor who said that sentence can answer your question in as much detail as you might like, but I suppose that the wording was intended to express regret and/or annoyance that something in the past was different from what the professor wanted. I'm guessing that your professor would explain it somewhat like that.

In any case, he could have said 'had' and the meaning would have been the same, although maybe the sentence shows a bit less annoyance with 'had'. It's hard to say, so don't take that to the bank. Personally, I recommend that students use 'had' in sentences like that. With regard to this recommendation, you may wish to take a look at the graph at the link below.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wish+they+had%2Cwish+they+would+have&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=28&smoothing=3

Usually 'wish ... would ...' is seen for wishes in the present that things in the future 'would' change because the speaker is annoyed by the present state of affairs. (I wish my students would stop complaining.)

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

ritikWhy did not he use " had" insted of "would've in the sentence above?

Just to support what has already been said with a second opinion, "would've" for "had" in such cases is an illiterate mistake. A "professor of English" should know better. It may be that his dialect does that in informal speech, and he was being informal, in which case it was merely a lapse of judgment on his part. Use "had"—nobody will notice that you're doing it right, but if you use "would've", some will notice that to your discredit.

By the way, in speech I would contract: "I wish my students'd had more walkouts …."

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