Tech Dogg's Dox Tox
Posted in Work at 1:55:16 PM on 22 June 2007 | Comments: 8
When I was about 13, I asked my mother, an elementary school teacher, why we used the word "were" instead of "was" in the sentence "If I were you, I'd eat your carrots". The verb doesn't agree with the subject, I thought. I couldn't figure it out. My mother wasn't much help either. "I don't know myself," she replied. "It's a rule of grammar. You just need to follow it."
So much for that.
A year or two later, I discovered why. Well, at least I learned the rule of grammar that dictated the usage. Why we need to use it is still a mystery to me.
In any event, it's the subjunctive mood, which we use to express doubt, conditions contrary to fact, wishes, and after the phrases as if and as though.
The subjunctive mood has been dying for decades now, but maybe its time is finally near. More often than not, I'm hearing sentences that don't include the subjunctive, as in, "I wish I was finished with the documentation for Sun Cluster 3.2 Update 1" or "If I was you, I'd punch that twit with the zit on the nose".
My ear almost prefers this usage now. It doesn't make me wince the way it used to, anyway. I suspect that everyone is beginning to accept it as the de facto usage as well. The subjunctive mood used to sound better to my ear, but verb agreement is quickly winning out.
Posted by Luke on June 22, 2007 at 02:21 PM PDT #
Posted by davidleetodd on June 22, 2007 at 04:58 PM PDT #
Posted by davidleetodd on June 22, 2007 at 05:00 PM PDT #
Posted by Paul Kasper on June 25, 2007 at 12:28 PM PDT #
Posted by 192.18.43.225 on June 25, 2007 at 02:56 PM PDT #
Posted by Andy K on July 16, 2007 at 01:15 PM PDT #
There are pieces of English subjunctive that are still alive and well and hard to do away with. Take this sentence:
"I insisted that he come to all my parties."
Now ordinarily to say "he come to all my parties" sounds like cave-speak. It's "he comes," right? But it sounds a little off to say "I insisted that he comes to all my parties." You NEED the subjunctive.
So even when you are saying the converse:
"He insisted that I come to all his parties," you are still using the subjunctive, only you wouldn't know it because saying, "I come to his parties," (present tense) is also correct, same as with "they come," "you come," "we come." With all the other pronouns here, the present tense and the subjunctive mood are the same. But not with "he, she, it," or a singular noun ("I insisted that the actress come to my party") because the present tense verb form for he-she-it pronouns has that pesky little "s" ending...so you can tell something is different in the subjunctive. Not so with the other pronouns or plural nouns.
You can see it best with the verb "to be." Think of these: I be, you be, he be, she be, we be, they be. They sound like inner-city dialects when standing alone in the present tense, as in "I be a good citizen," or "we be here now," or "you be on the honor roll."
But consider the subjunctive with the exact same phrasing: "He suggested that I be a good citizen," "You demanded that we be here," or "Your mother insisted that you be on the honor roll this semester." These forms aren't inner-city dialect at all. They are standard, textbook English subjunctive.
So the subjunctive in English is still alive...but weak. There are A LOT of ways to AVOID it and still say the same thing.
I deliberately picked sentences that would need to be totally reconstructed to use the present tense or other forms of the verb (like the infinitive), or completely different leading verbs to make the same sense, but you could do it, and we do, more often than not. We all do avoid the subjunctive in English, some more than others, probably because it often sounds stuffy.
But sometimes it still manages to come out of our mouths, and it sounds perfectly acceptable. Because it is.
Posted by August M on December 15, 2008 at 09:56 AM PST #
Sentences such as "It depends on who you are speaking to." are deemed formally incorrect for two reasons.
1) The use of the subject pronoun "who", instead of the prepositional "whom".
") The use of the present continuous indicative "are speaking."
The following is formally correct:
"It depends (on) to whom you (should) speak." because "(should) speak" fulfils the counterfactual requirement of the initial clause. It is the present subjunctive.
However, it is never heard. There is therefore a case for arguing that:
1) through usage, "who" has replaced "whom" as a legitimate prepositional pronoun,
and
2) "are speaking" works as a surrogate present subjunctive.
This would not be true 50 years ago; but such is the nature of the English language and its highly open parameters and lack of any decisive regulatory body.
The decline of these two forms is analogous, I feel, to the decline in "one", "he" and "his" as genderless pronouns; these are now replaced by "you" "they" and "their".
QED: grammar is not a monolith, but rather depends on a dialectic between everyday usage and established norms.
Posted by Owen Howell on June 05, 2009 at 08:42 AM PDT #