Needless repetition of verb phrases: Save your energy, life is short

Recently, a friend described a meal he had savored at a good local restaurant. He said to me:

"I would have wanted to have eaten every course."

He might have said more plainly and economically:

"I would have wanted to eat every course."

The problem is my friend's sequencing of tenses is overworked where it need not be. The verb phrase "would have wanted" is in the potential mood expressing a wish, something probable or possible. (John B. Opdycke, Harper's English Grammar). "...would have wanted" is the principal verb phrase and "tells the whole story." No necessity to repeat verb structures. The wish has been expressed, therefore, no need to repeat with "to have eaten," the perfect infinitive which basically expresses the same thing in terms of time frame.

If my friend had gotten his wish, yes, he "would have eaten." We know already the expression is in the potential. Just use the simple infinitive phrase, not the perfect infinitive.

If my friend had been expressing his wish in the nineteenth century, even into the early twentieth, he might have said something like: "...that I should eat more if I were capable." If this were the case, he would have been using the imperfect subjunctive (subjunctive mood), a verb structure not uncommon in those days.

But we are living in the early twenty-first century, and can still express ourselves economically with the added benefit of also being grammatically correct (in this case more aesthetically pleasing)* by using the perfect infinitive in the sequential phrase that follows the principal phrase. We understand the wish, we know the time frame, no need to repeat the time frame.

*I share a philosophy of grammar similar to that of Eric Partridge: Better to be moderate with respect to rules unless (emphasis mine) either logical or aesthetic sense be disturbed.

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