if

Taka wrote:

Eight-year-old Jimmy comes to school and on his face is the clear mark of a hand. if real fear and harsh punishment were removed from child training, children would develop into better happier and kinder adults. About the part in red, is it the subjunctive mood, or the simple past?

Hi,

What you have here could be either 'subjunctive were’ or 'indicative were’ (note for the ‘and’ in the subject phrase before ‘were’). My guess is the author uses the indicative ‘were’.

Here is an extract from “Grammar: Traditional Rules, Word Order, Agreement, and Case - Subjunctive” - The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English.  1996.

“… 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.”

Best,
Hoa Thai

So, we have two different answers already. Hmm...

Hoa Thai wrote:

Taka wrote: So, we have two different answers already. Hmm... That's not true! I wrote earlier that it could be either! One cannot actually tell from the sentence because the 'and'  is in the subjective phrase. Take a look at these: 1. "If I were a man, I would dress like my father"  - subjunctive were 2. "If I was a man, I would dress like my father" - indicate was 3. "If you and I were on a far away planet, we would...." - Now, you cannot tell! Make any sense to you?  Maybe other people would have different opinion. Hoa Thai

But you said:

Hoa Thai wrote:

My guess is the author uses the indicative 'were'.

Tell me Hoa Thai, what makes you guess so?

It's definitely subjunctive mood. But it's not easy.

Were can work to create the hypothetical in contexts in which the main verb (understand/comprehend/got in my modified examples) is  either present and past:

a) Parents and psychologists understand/comprehend/get the idea that if real fear and harsh punishment were removed from child training, children would develop
into better happier and kinder adults.

b) Parents and psychologists understood/comprehended/got the idea that if real fear and harsh punishment were removed from child training, children would develop
into better happier and kinder adults.

Now, in  b), "if the fear were removed" can be thought of being something valid/attempted at the time in the past or even valid/attempted at the present moment, the latter in an attempt to make the concept livelier to  the reader, similar to the:

He told me that the Earth was round.
He told me that the Earth is round.