i kind of like the sound of it but i’m not sure if it works, is it possible to ‘very wish’ ?
thanks!
You can “very much wish” but not directly “very wish.”
Personally, I like understatement. I’d go for a simple “Oh, how I wish it were possible.” Barring that, “Oh, I very much wish it were possible.”
If you want a cite and some jargon, The Oxford Reference Grammar (Sidney Greenbaum, ed. Edmund Wiener. OUP. Oxford. 2000.) states that “very” can function only as a premodifier of an adjective or another adverb, and not as an adverbial (an adverbial is an optional component of a sentence which modifies the sentence as a whole or the verb specifically). (p 173).
Agreed. “Very” is a special adverb that can’t stand alone like this.
Suggestions:
“Oh, how dearly I wish…”
“Oh, how greatly I wish…”
Just dropping the “very” seems the best way, though.
'Tis often thus.
Or you can go Ivy League:
“Oh, would that it were possible.”
shucks! i really liked the sound of it too 
i’ll go with Kizarvexius, i remember reading an article recently about the archaic usage of would
thanks all
Okay, I don’t have access to OED anymore but I bet that “very” originally appeared as a shortened form of “veritable” and that terms like “veritable wish” became “very wish” but nowadays “very wish” does not follow the rules of grammar (by whoever imposes these rules) and so is not considered “proper english”. Just because a term isn’t “proper” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. Language is constantly evolving - if enough people were to say “very wish” during the next 10 years it could very well be considered “proper”.
You can make a construct that will work. For example “the very wish of possibility”. As in
*the main jet
Struggling aloft until it seems at rest
In the act of rising, until
The very wish of water is reversed*
Richard Wilbur U.S. poet. A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra
But, don’t ask, surely that example is using “very” in the sense of “actual”, as in “get right to the very heart of the matter”.
Maybe when spoken with an Indian accent, it’s ok
r_k hits the nail on the head!
Veritable = Very = Actual.
How about: “Oh how I verily wish it were possible”? It’s a little obsolete, but it’s grammatically correct.