From pericles@temple.edu Sun Jul 14 04:45:35 2002 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g6EBjXNn011104 for ; Sun, 14 Jul 2002 04:45:33 -0700 Received: FROM mxu3.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Sun Jul 14 04:45:33 2002 -0700 Received: from smtp.comcast.net (smtp.comcast.net [24.153.64.2]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.06) with ESMTP id g6EBjWbq007116 for ; Sun, 14 Jul 2002 04:45:32 -0700 Received: from temple.edu (pcp01784256pcs.audubn01.nj.comcast.net [68.46.176.188]) by mtaout05.icomcast.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.8 (built May 13 2002)) with ESMTP id <0GZ8005AQLSS8J@mtaout05.icomcast.net> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 14 Jul 2002 07:41:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 07:42:38 -0400 From: Dan Tompkins Subject: counterfactuals To: classics@u.washington.edu Message-id: <3D3163AE.FD944D58@temple.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 (Macintosh; U; PPC) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en Conditional sentences in any language never lose their fascination. Looking through the W Post this morning I find this of Pres. Bush: "I absolutely had no idea and would not have sold had I known," he told the Dallas Morning News in 1994. Which brings to mind that teachers could enliven the teaching of conditions by using pithy presidential examples. Just to spread things around here are other counterfactuals from recent unnamed presidents (names at bottom). Can it be that we're at our most characteristic when we're most counterfactual? (E is the most immediately surprising but perhaps also the most revealing.) A. "If I were a single man, I might ask that mummy [a recently discovered Inca mummy] out." B. "If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house." C. "If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect." D. "If Lincoln were alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave." [not a really telling quote] E. "If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of the standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half century would have been impossible without the spreading of the knowledge of higher standards by means of advertising." Other interesting conditionals: Ike, to his press secretary, about the Formosa Strait crisis of 1955: "Don't worry Jim, if that question comes up, I'll just confuse them." [he did] Ike in 1960, when asked about major Nixon achievements as VP "If you give me a week, I might think of one." [He apologized in 1966] Answers: A Clinton. B Truman. C Nixon. D Ford. E F. Roosevelt. -- Daniel P. Tompkins Director, Intellectual Heritage Program Temple University 214 Anderson Hall, 1114 West Berks Street Philadelphia, PA 19122-6090 215/204 4900; 215/204-2359 (fax) pericles@temple.edu Check our website: http://courses.temple.edu/ih .