I want John to be my boyfriend (I believe this is possible)! I'm going to wish it for my birthday!

[Marika33]

Your daughter goes to high school. She wants John from her class to be her boyfriend. She believes this is possible and hopes it happens soon.
It's her birthday today. She blows out the candles on her birthday cake and makes this wish. Which has she wished?

1. I wish John were my boyfriend.
2. I wish John would be my boyfriend.
3. I wish John to be my boyfriend.
4. I wish for John to be my boyfriend.

 

[jutfrank]

If she makes a wish, it means it's an unreal fantasy, so she doesn't think it's possible. The reason to make a wish is that the only way to make it come true is through magic.

Given that, she'd use 1.

 

[Marika33]

1. I wish John were my boyfriend.
2. I wish John would be my boyfriend.
3. I wish John to be my boyfriend.
4. I wish for John to be my boyfriend.

she'd use 1.

Then why does the Cambridge Dictionary use 2 - "would be my boyfriend"?

(link)

 

[emsr2d2]

Please see post #14 HERE.

 

[jutfrank]

Then why does the Cambridge Dictionary use 2 - "would be my boyfriend"?

Probably for a future sense.

 

[Marika33]

Cambridge's example is based on the tradition (in the West, at least) that when someone blows out the candles on their birthday cake, they make a wish. It can be a wish for anything from "Please don't let it rain on Saturday" to "Please can I win the lottery", and would include something like "Please let John Lee decide he wants to be my boyfriend". It's like the secular version of a prayer. We call it "making a wish" but the actual words we use (in our head because these kinds of wishes are always silent) wouldn't include the words "I wish".

That's kind of weird. Why would the actualy words not include the words "I wish" if the very activity is called "making a wish"?

Then why does the Cambridge Dictionary use 2 - "would be my boyfriend"?

Probably for a future sense.

So it is possible? Why didn't you add this option in #2 then?

 

[emsr2d2]

That's kind of weird. Why would the actualy actual words not include the words "I wish" if the very activity is called "making a wish"?

Search me! You need to remember that native speakers have grown up with this usage. We don't dissect and analyse anything we say on a daily basis. If I've learnt one thing from this forum it's that explaining the use of "wish" and "hope" (both as verbs and nouns) is very complicated. I don't just mean explaining it to learners - even explaining it to ourselves or to each other can get everyone tangled up in knots. We use it how we use it because we've simply absorbed the usage from the people around us from the day we started being able to understand what people were saying.

 

[Piscean]

That's kind of weird.

You have used similar words of other things native speakers say. It's probably time you stopped judging English by some standards of formal logic, or by how another language works.

(The English watch things on television, the French à la (at the) télévision, the Germans im (in the) Fernsehen). All these forms are natural in their respective languages.)

 

[Marika33]

If I've learnt one thing from this forum it's that explaining the use of "wish" and "hope" (both as verbs and nouns) is very complicated. I don't just mean explaining it to learners - even explaining it to ourselves or to each other can get everyone tangled up in knots. We use it how we use it because we've simply absorbed the usage from the people around us from the day we started being able to understand what people were saying.

That's a good explanation. Honestly.

We call it "making a wish" but the actual words we use (in our head because these kinds of wishes are always silent) wouldn't include the words "I wish".

I'd like to clarify one thing. Does "wouldn't include" mean that they could be included sometimes, but not often, or that they are never included?

You have used similar words of other things native speakers say.

Please, I don't mean to ever offend or make you angry. I was just trying to make sense of that.

 

[Piscean]

Please, I don't mean to ever offend or make you angry.

You don't.

I was just trying to make sense of that.

I have the feeling that you sometimes try to 'make sense' of things in a way that is not really relevant to the way native speakers use English. As the author of a Merriam-Webster page here writes ... we must warn you that people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.

Incidentally that page discusses the use of I could care less by some American speakers when the traditional form of this expression is I couldn't care less. It's impossible to make sense of how these two contradictory expressions mean exactly the same this. A similar example from non-standard BrE is I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come with exactly the same meaning as I wouldn't be surprised if he came.