Are both of the following sentences grammatically correct ?
"I wish she would go out with me." "I wish she went out with me." Thanks in advance for your input.
Use of "wish"
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fluffyhamster
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For referring to the actual past here (albeit one that did not in fact transpire - so "actual" would probably be a better way of putting it!) you'd need to change the 'went' to 'had gone'. [Obviously the modal 'would' + 'base form of verb' is generally less confusing (in that modals aren't, with regards to their form/formal classification, so much tensed as simply just 'finite'), but trying the same switch to "actual" past on 'would go' (with the addition of 'have' and a change of 'go' to 'gone': ?I wish she would've gone out with me) would be as unnecessarily wordy (cf. I wish she had gone out with me) as using 'would have' rather than just 'had' in the protasis (=subordinate, if-clause) of a conditional sentence: http://tinyurl.com/3952zaa (a link to a relevant entry in the Google Books full preview of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage)].
Or you could change the wording so that the 'went' becomes literal: "I wish that the statement 'She went out with me' was/were true!".
But getting serious again, I suppose that the (whatever, any?) "volitional" aspect lurking in 'would' can be better distinguished if and when given extra-explicit and "helpful" i.e. matching versus mismatching context within contrasting examples (see those below, and note the would-won't symmetry in the first), but the second of your sentences certainly isn't incorrect, DGD! (As SJ before me also confirmed, albeit very succinctly!
).
I wish she would/she'd go out with me, but she won't.
?I wish she went out with me, but she won't.
Does 'went' sound as acceptable when the tense of 'wish' is actually itself past, though? Probably not!
I wished she would/she'd go out with me (but she wouldn't [=back then, obviously!]/but she won't [even now]).
??I wished she went out with me (but she wouldn't [=back then]/but she won't [=even now]).
Or you could change the wording so that the 'went' becomes literal: "I wish that the statement 'She went out with me' was/were true!".
But getting serious again, I suppose that the (whatever, any?) "volitional" aspect lurking in 'would' can be better distinguished if and when given extra-explicit and "helpful" i.e. matching versus mismatching context within contrasting examples (see those below, and note the would-won't symmetry in the first), but the second of your sentences certainly isn't incorrect, DGD! (As SJ before me also confirmed, albeit very succinctly!
).I wish she would/she'd go out with me, but she won't.
?I wish she went out with me, but she won't.
Does 'went' sound as acceptable when the tense of 'wish' is actually itself past, though? Probably not!
I wished she would/she'd go out with me (but she wouldn't [=back then, obviously!]/but she won't [even now]).
??I wished she went out with me (but she wouldn't [=back then]/but she won't [=even now]).