[TO THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—Your contributor's article
on "Dad Language" was full of interest and amusement. The criticism, in most cases sound, in a few cases tinged perhaps with pedantry, was surely in one case, if I rightly understand him, in error. If a man means that at one time he would have liked to have done or accomplished some- thing, is he wrong to say so ? He leaves us in doubt whether he has still the same desire. The significance of the phrase is quite distinct from that of either "I would have liked to do it" or " I would like to have done it." It may be that your contributor does not condemn the phrase altogether, though he appears to object to any doubling of have. I looked in vain for a very common and shocking instance of bad language—" those sort of things." Possibly that was beneath your contributor's range cf
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