 Marius Hancu wrote: |
| Goodman wrote: | |
Can i say: It is essential that we be informed of your plans. Yes!
Help him understand - Ok
It is essential that we should be informed of your plans.
We insist that he must be on time
There are those who use modal in subjunctive which in my opinion is improper but some considered it acceptable. I wouldn't not recommend it.
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You may want to read (if you find it) the Grammar ... by G. Curme, the best treatment of subjunctive I know (published in the 30s, but re-issued). "Should be" is a legal subjunctive, weaker than "be," in his opinion.
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Well there goes nothing! ![Tongue Tied [:S]](/emoticons/emotion-7.gif)
I had this debate many time over the same damned topic previously. You know what ! I was trying to confirm my own knowledge, I did some searching and 20 minutes later, the answers were 50/50 or inconclusive, but amazingly I accidentally came across this:
Moderator MrPedantic Join Date: Feb 2005
Country: England
Location: SE England
First Language: British English
Posts: 1,937
Hello Aurimas
If you leave out the "should" in those sentences, the meaning won't be changed; but in British English, you'll give a greater impression of formality.
For instance, if you were writing a strong letter of complaint about the ticket collector at your local station, you might use the subjunctive version:
1. He is rude, inconsiderate, and thoroughly obnoxious. I demand that he be sacked immediately.
While in conversation or less formal contexts, you would be more likely to use the "should" version:
2. I insisted that he should contact them immediately.
Incidentally, I copied and pasted a couple if interesting threads on this topic:
http://alt-usage-english.org/subjunctive_supplement.html
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/22159-try-tried.html