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Jooney Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
Would like to have done
Hi,
Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.
Q1) What does it refer to? Going to college?
Q2) What does "would like to have done" mean? Going to college is something they wish they had done in the past? It seems a little odd to interpret this way. Could someone give me a correct way to interpret this?
Thank you.
Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.
Q1) What does it refer to? Going to college?
Q2) What does "would like to have done" mean? Going to college is something they wish they had done in the past? It seems a little odd to interpret this way. Could someone give me a correct way to interpret this?
Thank you.
Top answer
Hi, Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do. Q1) What does it refer to? Going to college?
- Hi, Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.
- Q1) What does it refer to?
- Going to college?
- Yes.
- Q2) What does "would like to have done" mean?
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6 Answers
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Hi,
Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.
Survery data from the federal Department of Education suggest that 95 percent of high school seniors do in fact plan to go to college, but some of these students may aspire to college in the same way that many of us aspire to exercise: it is something they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.
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Q2) "done" is being used here to mean"to be over with/finished." However, the writer chose this verb in order to parallel it with "to do" at the end of the sentence. It is not an instance of "have done" / "had done" in a conditional wish/desire sense as you might have thought. For this reason, I find this wording to be very awkward and confusing. Replace "done" with "completed" and "do" wi
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jooneysomething they would like to have done but not something they would like to do.something that they wish they had already done and could now point to as an accomplishment, but not something that they are very enthusiastic about beginning to do.
- usually said of learning experiences that are difficult.
Aren't we all like that?
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something that they wish they had already done and could now point to as an accomplishment, but not something that they are very enthusiastic about beginning to do.
I can see clearly what the phrase means. Thank you very much, CJ.
I can see clearly what the phrase means. Thank you very much, CJ.
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