# If only I hadn't



## kitesandeater

Good evening. I'd be grateful if anybody would help me. Thank you.

I've written the following sentence:

_"I feel tired. If only I *hadn't stayed up *so late last night."
_
I'm not sure if I shoud have used "..._* didn't stay up*...."_  instead_._


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## blasita

Yes, the past perfect (_hadn't stayed up_) is right because you're talking about the past: something that you didn't do (go to bed early) and feel that you should have done (and so you feel tired now).

Saludos.


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## sound shift

Yes, I would say "hadn't stayed up" here.


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## kitesandeater

Thankyou you all for your quick response
Kite


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## alanla

*Hola Amigo mío:*
Algo para el foro* ingl**é**s*-español.
_"I feel tired. If only I *hadn't stayed up/=didn't stay up *so late last night."_


To me both sentences are absolutely correct grammatically and otherwise, and it is just a matter of choice because both convey the exact same thing.
*Example: *
I wish I *didn’t read that/hadn’t read **that,* because, despite occasional vitriolic indications to the contrary, I like my illusions about the world being a nice place.
*Both convey the meaning intended and would be quite well understood.


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## sound shift

Yo no podría decir "If only I didn't stay up so late last night." Empleo "If only I didn't ..." para cosas que hago en el presente y de forma repetida:
_If only I didn't snore_ ("Ojalá no roncara");
_If only I didn't have a cough _("Ojalá no tuviera tos");
etc.


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## inib

I'm afraid I disagree with alanla. In reference to the past, I would only use the past perfect. For me (and the grammar books my students use) _hadn't stayed up _and _didn't stay up_ are NOT equivalents.


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## kitesandeater

Good morning.
Thankyou you *all *again. In this case for the discussion which enriches my English learning.
Kite


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## alanla

I am afraid I disagree with *inib*. You cannot categorically state that the two sentences are not equal. First of all, I reiterate that the _meaning _is the same. Besides, you really have to know what sentences came before to even categorically claim with certainty that one sentence is wrong and the other isn’t. The same idea is conveyed by both, and that is the important thing. Besides, your really have to know what sentences came before to even claim anything with any degree of certainty. You really need to look at the whole picture. Many times, only one-liners are given to refute something, which only end up confusing the whole meaning of what is being said, without even looking at something closely enough to see exactly what is being said; I think that 
is the case here.
For instance, if the other context before what was just given was:
I stay up late. I have/had stayedup late. I do stay up late. I am staying up late. à[I’m tired]à[
Answer: I wish I hadn’t stayed up.[appropriate answer to all of the above]
Answer: I wish I didn’t stay up so late.[appropriate answer to all of the above]
*You don’t necessarily have to even answer back with the same tense structure [hadn’t…vs. didn…]. It is the idea that **IS **equal. Therefore, it is a **choice.*

The sentence or sentences that came before not even being known, you can’t just categorically say that the answer requires the past perfect. Then, there is no reason why one of those answers would not be appropriate and the other would. It all becomes a matter of nitpicking and is really pointless and pedantic.
If  *inib *would please scan the definitive reference from the grammar book cited and copy that reference to the forum, it would be welcome. Otherwise, it is just an unverified assertion. I used to teach, too. And that’s my opinion.


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## sound shift

All I can say is that the two sentences are not equal in British English. There is no choice between the two here in the sense that I don't hear speakers of British English say "If only I didn't stay up so late last night." The fact that American English offers a choice here is just another example of the many differences between AmE and BrE.


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## alanla

Yes, *sound* *shift,* I believe that might be the case. However, I stick to my point on this one. Anyway, that's my opinion, and it's why sometimes there isn't always a difinite answer. You can only defend your point. Sometimes, you just leave it to be decided by others--even then, I have seen incorrect answers and grammar accepted! Botton line: Does it really matter?? I think if you used either one of those statements after what was said, and there is no egregious grammatical error, you would immediately know what was meant [just my opinion ]. The fact is it is understood--the idea--like so many of the differences between Br. and Am. English. But they are never so great that we don't easily understand each other. Nevertheless, it's always good to keep an open mind when possible.


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## luo.mai

Sorry, alanla, but I'm with inib and sound shift: “If only I didn't stay up so late” does not mean the same thing as “If only I hadn't stayed up so late.” The former refers to a present, habitual action, whereas the latter refers to a past action (or past habitual action).

If only I didn't stay up so late, I might be able to see the sunrise every now and then.
If only I hadn't stayed up so late last night, I wouldn't be so tired today.
If only I hadn't stayed up so late as a teenager, I might have been a better student.

And while keeping an open mind is great, this is not simply one person's opinion; it is standard English (British, American, and otherwise).


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## alanla

Sorry,luo.mai, I still disagree. 
And, as is the case here, it really is beating a dead horse at times. You learn to not even reply again because very often I have seen wrong answers continued because people who gave the right answers found it futile to rebut anything.  So I normally state the case [one time] and leave no reply. This time was the exception. Any further reply just ends up creating endless threads, which are so off-point by the time they are finished.Think I better keep to that approach.


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## cubaMania

I think it can be useful to get feedback from various speakers to get a sense of the prevailing usage.
I add my voice as a speaker of American English.
I concur with luo.mai that in AE, also, "If only I hadn't stayed up so late last night..." is the standard way of expressing the intended meaning.  In my experience, "If only I didn't..." has a different meaning.


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## alanla

*Inib, *Would you please post that source if you now have it. I think it helps substantiate your point and would help teach others, myself included, since that reference you said you would provide would very easily and definitively answer any questions _in a minute_ and go a long way towards elminating any doubts about the integrity. I was disappointed not to see it. Please do. 
Greetings


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## SevenDays

_*I wish I hadn't stayed up so late*_ and _*I wish I didn't stay up so late*_ are syntactically ok, but they part ways semantically. What "hadn't stayed up" and "didn't stay up" do is denote modality, and the type of modality is determined by the verb in the main clause (here, "wish"). "Wish" _denotes contrary-to-fact_, and that is the modality that the verbs in the subordinate clause assume. To express contrary-to-fact in the present, the _simple past _is used; to express it in the past, the _past perfect_. In other words, their semantic spheres don't overlap. *I wish I hadn't stayed up so late* is confined to the past, and so it's understood that it applies to a one-time event that is now over. (Of course, you could stay up late again, in which case you'd be a repeat offender.) By contrast, *I wish I didn't stay up so late* refers to the present, and therefore says that you do this habitually (as has already been stated).   

_*I wish I didn't stay up so late last night*_ complicates things. The sentence starts telling us about something that is habitual ("I wish I didn't stay up so late"), but at the very end changes course abruptly to tell us that it's really about something in the past ("last night"). We might say that the context provided by "last night" overrides any confusion that could arise. But that this sentence is weakly constructed can be seen if we simply dropped "last night," in which case the habitual (present) meaning reasserts itself; the sentence no longer refers to the past. By contrast, in *I wish I hadn't stay up so late last night*, the contrary-to-fact meaning is so grounded in the past that we can remove "last night" and still maintain its past sense: *I wish I hadn't stay up so late*. 

It might be useful to keep *time* and *tense* separate. Tense is expressed by verb inflection, and it situates a sentence in *grammatical* time (past or present). Time, on the other hand, is more difficult to define, for it is always closely tied to the _meaning_ expressed by a sentence. We might say that time is psychological. Tense is absolute; time is relative. In our examples, *tense* is marked by the main verb "wish;" *time* is defined by the contrary-to-fact modality, which is expressed in the present by "didn't" and in the past by "hadn't." (This is also why many say that English has no future tense, but it has future time.)

Cheers


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## James2000

luo.mai said:


> Sorry, alanla, but I'm with inib and sound shift: “If only I didn't stay up so late” does not mean the same thing as “If only I hadn't stayed up so late.” The former refers to a present, habitual action, whereas the latter refers to a past action (or past habitual action).



I'd also go with this explanation.


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## kitesandeater

Goodevening.
There hasbeen many new interesting inputs for me to learn in this thread since I saidgoodbye (#8 -15th April), thus I need to say thank you again. It's wonderful.
Kite


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## kitesandeater

Good night SevenDays.
Sorry SevenDays for having coloured the las paragraph of your very interesting post, but I've made it because while reading it I've realized how ignorant I am (at lease in grammar). I always thought that "tense" and "time" were the same thing, and for your explanation I see It is not the case, or may it is the case and I am unable to catch it. I must confess that I have never dealt enough with grammar. I have translated into Spanish the coloured paragraph, except for the word "tense". I don't know how to do it. Would you mind to have a look at it and decipher the adecuate translation for that word? I'd be very grateful. Kite.

It might be useful to keep time and tense separate. Tense is expressed by verb inflection, and it situates a sentence in grammatical time (past or present). Time, on the other hand, is more difficult to define, for it is always closely tied to the meaning expressed by a sentence. We might say that time is psychological. Tense is absolute; time is relative. In our examples, tense is marked by the main verb "wish"; time is defined by the contrary-to-fact modality, which is expressed in the present by "didn't" and in the past by "hadn't." (This is also why many say that English has no future tense, but it has future time.)


Podría ser útil (bueno, aconsejable) mantener separado tiempo y ¿tense?. Tense es expresado por la inflexión verbal, y el mismo (tense) sitúa una oración en su tiempo gramatical (pasado o presente). El tiempo, por otro lado, es más difícil de definir, ya que siempre está estrechamente unido al significado expresado por una oración. Se podría decir que el tiempo tiene un sentido psicológico. Tense es absoluto (incuestionable); el tiempo es relativo. En nuestros ejemplos, tense lo determina el verbo principal "wish"; El tiempo es definido por la contrary-to-fact modality (entiendo estos términos pero no les veo traducción posible estando juntos: c-t-f & modality), que es expresada en presente por "didn't" y en pasado por "hadn't". (Esta es también la razón por la que muchos dicen que el inglés no tiene future tense, pero sí tiempo futuro.


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## inib

SevenDays said:


> _*I wish I didn't stay up so late last night*_ complicates things. The sentence starts telling us about something that is habitual ("I wish I didn't stay up so late"), but at the very end changes course abruptly to tell us that it's really about something in the past ("last night"). We might say that the context provided by "last night" overrides any confusion that could arise. But that this sentence is weakly constructed can be seen if we simply dropped "last night," in which case the habitual (present) meaning reasserts itself; the sentence no longer refers to the past. By contrast, in *I wish I hadn't stay up so late last night*, the contrary-to-fact meaning is so grounded in the past that we can remove "last night" and still maintain its past sense: *I wish I hadn't stay up so late*.
> 
> 
> Cheers


SevenDays, 
As always I (and I imagine most other foreros) am grateful for your deep insight into both the "rules" and the use of our language.
I haven't posted on the thread for a few days because of a rather unfortunate misunderstanding I had with another participant, but through PMs we have now more than ironed that out and both agree that it would be interesting to get to the bottom of this. (We both highly respect your opinion).
In your quoted paragraph above, I interpret (and please outrightly correct me if I'm wrong) that using "didn't..." + "last night" (if not totally contradictory), doesn't really stand on its own two feet.
Your third paragraph is the one that I'm not so sure that I have grasped fully , but for eveyone's interest, it really may be better to go step by step.
If you have the time and patience, we'd like to hear from you again.
Regards,
Inib


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## alanla

In your quoted paragraph above, I interpret* (and please outrightly correct me if I'm wrong)* that using "didn't..." + "last night" (if not totally contradictory), doesn't really stand on its own two feet.
Your third paragraph is the one that I'm not so sure that I have grasped fully , but for eveyone's interest, it really may be better to go step by step.
If you have the time and patience, we'd like to hear from you again.
Regards,
Inib[/QUOTE]

I am afraid I disagree with *inib*.You cannot categorically state that the two sentences are NOT equal. First of all, I reiterate that the _meaning  _is the same. Besides, you really have to know what sentences came before to even categorically claim with certainty that one sentence is wrong and the other isn’t. I’m sure that was the lesson in *kitesandeater’s *book he was referring to .Besides, his posts are often intricate.  The same idea is conveyed by *both *sentences, and that is the important thing. 
 Your quote: (andplease outrightly correct me if I'm wrong). See the following.

Requoted exerpt from your post quoting *Sevendays*. [cited by you]
*I wish I didn'tstay up so late last night* complicates things. The sentence starts telling us aboutsomething that is habitual ("I wish I didn't stay up so late"), butat the very end changes course abruptly to tell us that it's really aboutsomething in the past ("last night"). We might say that the contextprovided by "last night" overrides any confusion that could arise. [It retains a reference to *present habitual action*.] But that this sentence is weakly[ambiguously] constructed can be seen if we simply dropped "lastnight,"[*Last night** is not dropped in the example given that we are discussing.*]in which case thehabitual (present) meaning reasserts itself;[i.e., theyare equal inmeaning] the sentence no longer refers to the past. By contrast, in *Iwish I hadn't stay up so late last night*, the contrary-to-fact meaningis so grounded in the past that we can  remove "last night"[We didn’t; therefore, it still retains the same meaning,  still making the 2 sentences equal in that sense. That is what we are talking about.] and still maintain its past sense: *I wish Ihadn't stay up so late*.

*1.    **Semanticsplural of se·man·tics (Noun)*


Noun:



1.     The branch of linguistics and logic    concerned with meaning.
2.     The meaning of a word, phrase, sentence,    or text: "such quibbling over semantics may seem petty stuff".
3.     
[The meaning would change and be different    if *last night* _were _removed.    It wasn’t. So let’s not talk about a situation that doesn’t exist    because we are talking about the two sentences that have *last night* in them.]





*Semantics* (from Greek: sēmantiká, neuter plural of _sēmantikós_)[1][2] is the study of meaning. Itfocuses on the relation  between  _signifiers_, such as words,phrases, signsand symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.
Any closer, logical reading of* SevenDays’* definitive, incisive explanationby anyone familiar with grammar will bear out that the 2 sentences *are *equal in meaning. And given the information we were given with no other context, *both* could have been acceptable.


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## alanla

*Re: I wish hadn't/didn't stay up last night. Added Explanation.*Your small, selective excerpt is a distortion and totally contradictory to what is said there! No doubt, it is also Greek to anyone else if he/she would not take the time to understand what was presented. It is an extremely complicated grammatical point.
You said you teach English and categorically said the 2 sentences were NOT equal. That was proven *NOT*to be true, upon closer reading. [ *Quote SevenDays: By contrast,I wish I didn't stay up so late refers to the present, and therefore says that you do this habitually(as has already been stated*).]  You promised a reference from a book you said you had [see previous post/ plus also one you had erased]. If there is, indeed,such a reference, please post it. You last post is a total distortion of what was said. What is posted there supports my point, not yours. If you are to support your premise in any logical, reasonable way and keep any integrity you might still have there, you need to post your own reference, the quote from your book that contradicts the evidence given by *SevenDays*.Otherwise, it has no credibility whatsoever.
There is a lesson here to be learned, and you promised unequivocally you would post your reference. Certainly, there has never been any doubt about your integrity in my mind. I messaged you and gave you 4-5 ways to post that,but you haven’t. If you still need help, I have a few additional ways to help you do that. And I hope your computer isn’t still  broken, after all this time,like you said it was. With all due respect, you can’t provide what you don’thave—a good argument to the contrary. More is needed than “I am a teacher… you’re wrong.”   I would still be glad to help. I have stated that much of what I said was my opinion [see post 15 April]. I would love  to read your contribution. Do you have it?? I, and other foreros, would benefit from your expertise. Read that third paragraph again to try to full grasp the concept. Always willing to learn something more! 
You would teach us so much. It is amazing how quickly ignorance fades when you shed light on it.
Spanish Proverb: Rectificar es de sabios. A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.
I hope you understand the meaning and intent of what is said.  lol
Greetings


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## inib

OK, Alan. Fair enough. We've been talking at cross-purposes. Sorry about that. You underline the bits you like, I might have been tempted to underline _ might, weakly (ambiguously) _etc.


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## blasita

No debería meterme donde no me llaman, pero bueno, espero que no se tome a mal y acepto correcciones con mucho gusto. Solo me gustaría:

1) Escribir en español, ya que este hilo está abierto en un foro de inglés-español, y pienso que esto puede ayudar a algún hispanohablante que no domine tanto el inglés y esta gramática, y que es muy probable que a estas alturas se encuentre perdido.

2) He de confesar que yo misma me he perdido un poco en los argumentos o en la posible controversia que pudiera haber.

La gramática que yo sé es como se ha comentado ya (y la que yo comenté brevemente en mi primer 'post'): _if only+past perfect_ se usa para hablar del pasado; en este caso la referencia de pasado está clara (_last night_), y así este tiempo verbal se utiliza en estos casos para hablar de algo que nos gustaría/desearíamos que (no) _hubiera_ ocurrido/que _hubiera_ sido diferente. 

Me he estado preguntando si es que pudiera tratarse de diferencias de uso: en español yo tuve un hilo complicado en el que algunos foreros daban por válida una construcción condicional que era incorrecta (como se demostró al final), pero que ellos usaban. Los idiomas son muy complicados, pero a la vez muy interesantes.

Un saludo a todos.


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## florbonita23

_If only I *hadn't stayed up *so late last night_


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## kitesandeater

Hola a todos.
Como "padre de la criatura" -el culpable del post inicial- os diré que lo estoy siguiendolo con el mayor interés. Creo que todo, absolutamente todo, lo dicho, tiene un incalculable valor para los que como yo nos acabamos de sumergir en el aprendizaja de la lengua inglesa. Gracias a todos. Un saludo, y que siga la fiesta


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## SevenDays

inib said:


> SevenDays,
> As always I (and I imagine most other foreros) am grateful for your deep insight into both the "rules" and the use of our language.
> I haven't posted on the thread for a few days because of a rather unfortunate misunderstanding I had with another participant, but through PMs we have now more than ironed that out and both agree that it would be interesting to get to the bottom of this. (We both highly respect your opinion).
> In your quoted paragraph above, I interpret (and please outrightly correct me if I'm wrong) that using "didn't..." + "last night" (if not totally contradictory), doesn't really stand on its own two feet.
> Your third paragraph is the one that I'm not so sure that I have grasped fully , but for eveyone's interest, it really may be better to go step by step.
> If you have the time and patience, we'd like to hear from you again.
> Regards,
> Inib



Hello

I think I would call "I wish I didn't stay up last night" informal, but I wouldn't call it incorrect, or say that it doesn't stand on its two feet. 

In "wish" constructions,  the norm is that the simple past is used with  present or future meaning, and that the past perfect is used with a past meaning (because the past perfect indicates _anteriority_).  By "norm" I mean standard/formal English, the English expected  in certain environments, such as academia and business, and the English taught in grammar books. *I wish I didn't stay up last night* goes against the norm; it's got "didn't" where "hadn't" is expected. Because it goes against norm, this construction relies heavily on the context provided by "last night," a grammatical element that otherwise would be a mere adjunct. Remove "last night," and the meaning changes ( which is why I said that this is syntactically weaker than the standard "I wish I hadn't stayed up last night," where "last night" can easily be left out without altering the message).  But keep "last night," and it anchors the counterfactual meaning in the past, thereby getting rid of the need to use "hadn't." Keep "last night," and this adjunct assumes a larger syntactic role; it is no longer a removable element (as all adjuncts are); "last night" is now an integral part of the sentence, and therefore irremovable. Keep "last night," we must. My brain, however, is reluctant to use "didn't stay up last night." Because "last night" comes in at the very end, the sentence takes too long to say what it really means; it is open to ambiguity. By contrast, *I wish I hadn't stayed up (last night)* (with or without "last night") means what it means right from the beginning. But it seems fair to say that others see nothing wrong with the use of the simple past. An underlying point here may be that the simple past tends to easily displace the past perfect, because both are perfective (both depict the verb action as "finished"). The act of "staying up" is over with, so the simple past pushes aside the past perfect.  

The relationship between tense and time is complex, but let's simply it this way: *time* is semantic; *tense, *morphosyntactic. Semantic, because time is defined by the sentence (here, as a counterfactual wish); morphosyntactic, because tense is a grammatical expression of time _without reference to any other syntactic element_: _wish*es*_, _wish*ed*_, where the bound morphemes *-es* and *-ed* ("bound" because they are attached to the verb) _by themselves_ and without help mark time (present and past, respectively). (In _I wish_, the morpheme  is said to be "null," expressed as Ø) With their morphology established, "wishes" and "wished" can function syntactically as predicates, with or without complements: _She wishes_; _I wish I hadn't stayed up last night_. We can't attach a "bound" morpheme to express future tense (in other words, the  future isn't conjugated), but we can use the "free" morpheme "will" to indicate future time: _I will wish_.

I hope I'm not complicating things, but perhaps I am.

And, a mea culpa. In my previous message, I failed to notice that twice I wrote "hadn't stay up" when I should've said "hadn't stayed up."  It's so easy to overlook typos. The system won't let me go back in there, so the types are duly noted here. (Thanks, cubaMania). 

Cheers


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## inib

> Not at all, SevenDays. It seems to me that you are making complicated things a lot easier to understand. I'm very grateful, as I'm sure all the other participants on the thread are.
> I'm going to enjoy digesting all of this!


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## blasita

Sí, como siempre, Seven nos ha dado una lección de gramática a todos. 

Sin embargo, sí creo que a veces se pueden complicar demasiado las cosas para los que simplemente están aprendiendo. Es un hecho que la gramática de ambos idiomas es flexible y que existen usos diferentes (lo que yo respeto mucho), pero me gustaría añadir que si se usa en casos como este otra construcción que no sea _if only+past perfect_ para pasado, lo más seguro es que no se dé por válida, por ejemplo en una clase de inglés o en un examen.


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