I will never chance to meet him in my life
Is this sentence correct English, if it's intended to mean:
I will never get a chance to meet this person in my life.
Update: Since ambiguities arose, in respect of the acceptance of the phrase above, I would like to clarify the specific case I was inquiring about. Can either of these two variants:
a. "I will never chance to meet the king in my whole life".
b. "I will never chance meeting the king in my whole life".
ever mean:
"I will never have a chance to meet the king in my whole life".
If you think both variants do not make much sense, what other good alternatives can be suggested? Especially when addressing a person you greatly admire, as in "In my youth I thought, I will never have a chance to meet you in my whole life". Perhaps, more elegantly phrased …
Best Answer
Consider the following sentences:
If you should chance to meet him when you're in Oxford, please give him my regards.
If you chance to meet him when you're in Oxford, please give him my regards.
We can paraphrase it:
If you happen to meet him....
If by accident your paths should cross...
In other words, "chance to" refers to something unplanned.
For that reason, if we wish to make sense, we cannot say:
does not make good senseI will never chance to meet him.
because it is tantamount to saying:
I intend never to meet him by accident.
or
In the future our paths will never happen to cross.
It is impossible to intend what happens accidentally, and something that is intentional is not accidental; nor can we predict what might happen in the future.
Now, if you know that he has volunteered for the first manned mission to Mars, and will never return to the planet Earth, you might be able to predict that your paths will never cross by accident. But to say it in that way would be a rather odd way of stating the fact. It's like saying that you will never run into Alexander the Great at a football match.