Using the Subjunctive Correctly in English
I know most people don’t know how to use the subjunctive in English. You use the subjunctive in counterfactual statements (”If I were going to the store…”, NOT “If I was going to the store…”), wishful statements (”If I were a hammer….” NOT “If I was a hammer…”) and conjuctive formulations (”Lest you misuse the subjunctive, read here for more information”).
It’s annoying enough when people misuse the subjunctive in everyday conversation. When the title of a children’s book, however, is “I Wish I Was…” I have to bang my head against the wall. Who was your editor? Who? And from what cut-rate English program did she graduate? I ask because she needs a good slap, her advisor needs a slap or two and the entire program needs a few kicks in the shin. The publishing house should feel some shame too.
Can you tell this is one of my pet peeves? When I am reading one of my novels just because it has no redeeming literary merit does not, in my opinion, exempt it from meeting standard grammar requirements. When the subjunctive gets misused it throws me right out of the story, breaks into my mental flow, and that annoys me.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled mommyblog already in progress wherein my son is trying to balance a red block on his head for reasons that I am sure would make sense if you were one.
Stumble it!
Donate to the Zoë and Lennox Simpson Memorial Fund
and the 529 college savings accounts get a kickback.
December 14th, 2007 11:13
I have such a crush on you right now! Let’s get together over some decadently rich sipping chocolate and some of those espresso brownies and critique grammar!
“NO! No dangling participles!”
“Affect is a verb, effect is a noun. Get it right!”
Geeky English Teacher love…
December 14th, 2007 11:17
It’s the brown sugar betties I am craving…
December 14th, 2007 13:07
The never-ending random insane misuse of it’s & its drives me mad!
And random insertions of apostrophes, like when you see a sale on “bed’s”.
rant over…
December 14th, 2007 13:27
Actually it seems that balancing a red block on one’s head makes sense at any age to a guy, as evidenced by the men in my office.
December 14th, 2007 14:15
If I were a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning.
NOT If I was a hammer,
I’d a-hammer in the mornin’
????
Aw c’mon, proper grammar may be desirable in written contexts from children’s books to romance novels, but it ain’t right in a folk song.
Signed,
Grumpy Hippie
December 14th, 2007 14:56
Since I sell children’s books, I frantically checked my inventory and inhaled a deep sigh of relief when I discovered that I own “If I Were a Pilot.” Thank goodness.
I also can’t stand when people insert random apostrophes in words, making them possessive when they should be plural. Here’s a sign I saw recently: Bring all your used book’s! Bring all my used book’s WHAT? My used book’s pages? It’s like nails on a chalkboard!
December 14th, 2007 15:23
Ooops.
The song lyric is:
“If I HAD a hammer…”
Signed,
Brain-dead Hippie.
December 14th, 2007 15:33
Pann - You really took that example to heart, didn’t you?
If I were a pilot, I’d a-hammer in the mor-or-ning, I’d a-hammer in the evening all over this la-and.
Wait.
December 14th, 2007 16:16
I love you.
Every now and again I realize I have no clue why a certain form is used in a given way, so I have to look it up. Take who and whom–now I know when to use one and when to use the other, instead of relying on my instincts.
It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who cares.
December 14th, 2007 16:17
I had a business tell me thank’s for you’re business…it was printed on their business cards. It makes me want to shop there less. Or at least come armed with a red sharpie next time!
December 14th, 2007 17:53
Oh, this is why foreign languages are such a wonderful thing. The subjunctive is dropping out of popular English usage, but it’s alive and well in other languages. However, most of those languages have more verb conjugations than English does in the first place, and I think it’s fair to say that’s one reason why English is a little bit easier to learn.
It is common, though, for languages to drop aspects, tenses and moods as they evolve. Modern Greek has lost the subjunctive and optative moods, to name the example I’m most familiar with. I suspect that, in fifty or a hundred years, the English subjunctive will be considered archaic.
December 14th, 2007 22:55
Emma — I think you are right and shortly the subjunctive will vanish from English.
A very good Latin text actually introduces the subjunctive in the first chapter rather than about halfway through the course on the theory that the subjunctive is really important in Latin and everyone ends up a little fuzzy on it because it shows up so late in so many grammar courses. It wasn’t the text I used with my high school kids though I kind of wish it were.
December 15th, 2007 04:55
Thank you! I was just trying to explain this to my cousin, who’s trying to master subjunctive in Spanish class at the moment. People don’t seem to be aware that it exists in English anymore, but it’s there, I tell you! We’re keeping it alive!
(And I followed you over here from one of your youtube videos. I nursed my twins until eighteen months. I had three different doctors telling me that it was impossible to breastfeed two infants without supplementation. But I had a good book and common sense telling me otherwise. Your two are lovely.)
December 15th, 2007 12:49
Oh, and I should also say that I took Latin at a very early age (8 years old), and I learned the subjunctive in Latin well before I formally learned it in English.
I often think we would be well served to begin teaching foreign languages at a much younger age than we do now. Regardless of whether they acquired fluency in it, it would do wonders for their grasp of their own tongue.
December 15th, 2007 21:17
Wow! What school did you go to that started Latin at 8? (Of course, the school we plan to send the twins to starts Spanish in 1st and Latin in 4th so I know it isn’t unheard of but it is unusual to start a dead language that early.)
December 16th, 2007 15:31
A store in my neighborhood that does silk-screening and embroidery has a sign in the window that says “Please check all reciepts for spelling errors before leaving the store.” Way to inspire confidence.
December 16th, 2007 18:24
Actually, I think that both might be acceptable now (if only I had a modern copy of Fowler). Isn’t the subjunctive though one of those things that only works with the verb to be? I feel that it is one of those things that was inserted into English grammar because English grammar was shoehorned into Latin grammar (if you see what I mean). Normally, I am very bitter about this kind of thing but, in this instance, for these reasons, I might let it go.
December 16th, 2007 18:58
I’d been messing around with an old Latin textbook we had at home, so my dad thought it would be a good idea to enroll me in Latin 101 at a local college. (Why yes, I was a nerdy kid with a stage-parent dad.) I actually did well in the course, and while I can’t say I consciously remembered a whole lot of it, I picked it up again very, very quickly in college. He did the same thing for French, and I eventually became fluent in it.
I won’t send my children to college classes — it’s socially problematic — but I do plan to start them on Latin, Greek, and French in elementary school, whether or not we formally homeschool. I’m capable of teaching all three, and if my girls are anything like me, they’ll enjoy the secret-language and puzzle-solving aspects of it.