"W. Kiernan" wrote:
>
> ravi wrote:
> >
> > Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > > After Packer's talk, I politely asked him if he
> > > regretted his support for the war. He did. "I wish
> > > I would have had more information at the time," he
> > > told me.
> >
> > "Would have had" -- what's that called in grammar: past continuous?
>
> I think it's something like a past imperfect. Between "had had," "could
> have had," and "would have had" I hear distinct shades of meaning aroud
> the difference between "can" and "will." "Had had" is impersonal.
> "Could have had" implies that having that information was impossible,
> i.e., not having it was nobody's fault. "Would have had" seems to put
> an agent who willfully held back information from Packer.
I'm not sure of this interesting set of distinctions, but granting them, clearly "would have had" is the correct wording, and the "agent who willfully held back information from Packer" was Packer himself. Anyone who wanted to know had only to think for a few minutes (seven at the most), and without further input could have known (as all of us on this list knew) that there was not the faintest excuse for the u.s. aggression in Iraq. Those who who did not see that would do best to just shut up for a year or two, hoping that everyone will forget their inanity and/or criminality in the lead-up to war.
Carrol