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In last week’s WoW, I chose to include what might be a grammatical error: should I have said “I wish he were” or “I wish he was”? And, I’m wondering, what is the correct label for the tense of that verb? It sort of bothered me all week, and it put me in mind of an old joke that I’ve always liked a lot, though it was a pretty bad joke back in the sixties when I first heard it, and, for several reasons, I do believe it gets worse with age. I have not, in recent years, found many opportunities to tell it, but I’m pretty sure that you would like to hear it. By all means, do let me know if I’m mistaken.
So. There was a guy in Wisconsin who was going to fly to Boston for his first time ever, for a business meeting, and he mentioned it to a friend who said, “Hey, I’ve been to Boston! Listen, you gotta be sure to try this fish they’ve got there, it’s really great, it’s called scrod!”
So the guy says he’ll keep that in mind. A few days later he arrives in Boston and takes a taxicab from the airport to his hotel, and when he’s paying the driver, the Wisconsin guy remembers his pal’s recommendation, and he says, “Oh, by the way, can you tell me a good place around here where I can get scrod?”
The cabbie shakes his head in amazement and tells him, “Oh, my! Mister, I have been driving taxi for twenty years and I have heard that question must be a thousand times, but never before have I heard it asked in the pluperfect subjunctive!”
You are welcome. Whether you remembered hearing that one before or just maybe saw the punch line coming anyway, I hope I took your mind off Ukraine for a minute or two. Lord have mercy, it’s a horrible thing that’s happening there.
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