Wish - Had

[rajan]

Is the following sentence grammatically correct?


I wish you had more number of campus than (Name of the University) over the next five years.

 

[Rover_KE]

Sorry—no, and I don't even know what it means.

 

[rajan]

During a discussion with a promoter of a newly opened University, we are having discussion about other University(whose promoters are different) and they have many University campuses across India and abroad. In that reference, I want to use that sentence. This newly opened University has only one campus. I am sorry if I still could not convey what I want to say in that sentence. I am rewriting that sentence again with one change.

I wish you had more number of campuses than (Name of the University) has over the next five years.

 

[emsr2d2]

You can't combine "I wish you had" with "over the next five years".

 

[rajan]

You can't combine "I wish you had" with "over the next five years".

Is this right now?

I wish you had more number of campuses than (Name of the University) has in times to come.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Is this right now?

Not yet. As Ems said in post 4, had is past tense, so it can't refer to the future.

I hope you will have more [STRIKE]number of[/STRIKE] campuses than (Name of the University) has in times to come.

We would not say "more number of." You can say "more" or "a greater number of," but you can't combine them.

You can also end it with "in five years."

Also, you might like to look up the difference between the verbs wish and hope.

 

[rajan]

Will the sentence be right if I replace the word hope with desire or pray in the sentence corrected by you in your above post? I do not want to use word hope.

 

[GoesStation]

Will the sentence be right if I replace the word "hope" with "desire" or "pray" in the sentence corrected by you in your above post? I do not want to use the word "hope".

"Hope" is the best word for the context. Why don't you want to use it? The others are less natural.

Always mark words and text you're talking about with quotation marks or italics.

 

[rajan]

Irrespective of the context mentioned by me, I am curious to know that with the use of words like "pray" or "hope" in that sentence, any change in the tense occurs or not.

 

[GoesStation]

Irrespective of the context mentioned by me, I am curious to know [STRIKE]that[/STRIKE] whether, with the use of words like "pray" or "hope" in that sentence, any change in the tense occurs [STRIKE]or not[/STRIKE].

This is grammatical but not very natural:

I pray that you will have more campuses than (Name of the University) has in times to come.

Charlie Bernstein already said that "hope" works.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Will the sentence be right if I replace the word hope with desire or pray in the sentence corrected by you in your above post? I do not want to use word hope.

No. Desire would simply be wrong. Pray would make you sound like you lived in the eighteenth century.

Hope is the correct word. Use it.

The choice of wish, hope, desire, or pray does not affect the tense in any way. You need to say will have. The word will refers to the future.

Can you tell us more about what you're trying to express?

 

[rajan]

Can you tell us more about what you're trying to express?

I know about conditional sentences. I regret, even then, I made mistake of using wish with had in a wrong context. Before posting this post, I read about word wish and how to use it. I came to know that it can mean "would like" also. Can I write the sentence as "I wish you to have more campuses than (Name of the University)?"

 

[GoesStation]

I made the mistake of using "wish" with "had" ….

Always mark words and text you're talking about with quotation marks or italics. It's not optional.

 

[GoesStation]

Can I write the sentence as "I wish you to have more campuses than (Name of the University)?"

No, and "wish" probably isn't the verb you want. I think you hope this will happen.

 

[Tarheel]

If some university is going to have more campuses they will have to build them. Wishing won't make it happen. You could say, "I hope you have more campuses in the future."

 

[emsr2d2]

As you now know, you simply can't use "wish" for this context to refer to the future.

I wish you had more campuses. I hope you'll have more in the future.

"I wish you had ..." refers to the present situation.
"I hope you'll have ..." refers to the future.