 Anonymous wrote: |
Thank you all for your replying to my stupid question. I really appreciate it.
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Hi Anon,
In contrary, I don’t think your question is stupid. It
brings up an issue that has stirred many good discussions in this forum and
elsewhere. Here is an extracted text that represents one of the views regarding
subjunctive mood - http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html:
“English has had a subjunctive mood since Old English times,
but most of the functions of the old subjunctive have been taken over by
auxiliary verbs like may and should, and the subjunctive survives
only in very limited situations. It has a present and past form. The
present form is identical to the base form of the verb, so you only
notice it in the third person singular, which has no final -s, and in
the case of the verb be, which has the form be instead of am,
is, and are.
We insist that he do the job properly.
Whether he be opposed to the plan or not, we
must seek his opinion.
The past subjunctive is sometimes called the were subjunctive, since were is the only
subjunctive form that is distinct from the indicative past tense.
If he were sorry, he’d have apologized by
now.
Suppose she were to resign, what would you do then?
According to
traditional rules, you use the subjunctive to describe an occurrence that
you have presupposed to be contrary to fact: If I were ten years younger, I
would consider entering the marathon. … When the situation described by
the if clause is not presupposed to be false, however, that clause must
contain an indicative verb.... He would always call her from the office
if he was (not were) going to be late for dinner.
Another traditional rule states that you are not supposed to
use the subjunctive following verbs such as ask or wonder in if
clauses that express indirect questions, even if the content of the question is
presumed to be contrary to fact: We wondered if dinner was (not were)
included in the room price. Some of the people we met even asked us if California was (not were)
an island.
In practice, of
course, many people ignore the rules. In fact, over the last 200 years even
well-respected writers have tended to use the indicative was where the
traditional rule would require the subjunctive were. A usage such as
If I was the only boy in the world may break the rules, but it sounds
perfectly natural.”
As you have seen, Amy showed us a graceful exit from being
half right (or half wrong) by not using either was or were - a lesson for
us to recognize the good English, which “rarely sparks the expressed or
unexpressed reaction ‘That’s not Good English,’ either from those who really do
know better or from those who merely think they do.” – Edward D. Johnson, The
Handbook of Good English.