By Subjunctives, Numbers

As to the first sentence, I think "that" is often needed. The Google results: A.” It is important he” 19600 B.”It is important that he" 86500 While the 19600 results include large number of "it is important, he". And the verbs in the rest are not in Subjunctive forms with very few...

Hi Anon, I believe your question is somehow related to ‘subjunctive mood’ in English, and I would like to touch base on this topic. One of the functions of subjunctive mood is to express an idea or a statement that is contrary or hypothetical to real present. In such cases, the past form of ‘to...

1. Jenny talks as if she knows everything = Jenny talks like a person who knows everything ( but you aren't saying whether Jenny really knows everything or not) I agree. 2. Jenny talks as if she knew everything = Jenny talks like a person who knows everything, but she doesn't really know...

Mary Ansell has a chapter on the subjunctive mood at http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch09.html. One of the complications in using the subjunctive is the fact that, besides hypothetical condition clauses, which require the subjunctive, there are factual condition clauses that do...

CalifJim wrote:If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!'Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want! In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your...

Thanks for your reply, MrP. 1. I would call it an exclamatory conditional. The main clause is left unspoken, but we can usually infer it, e.g. "if only she would contact me, I would be very happy". Ok, it’s a conditional with an unexpressed result but still a ‘conditional’ right? In this case,...

If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!' Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want! In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your students realize...

Japan wrote: Hello guys I have one question long about ' I could have danced all night' in 'My Fair Lady'. It has a passage of "I only know when he began to dance with me, I could have danced all night." Is that a third-condition? If so, I think the conditional clause should be "he had begun...

OED explains 'albeit' like this. albeit, conj. The sun, albeit from a lowly altitude, shone out in full brightness. paco

CGEL: A significant weakness of traditional grammars of English is that they incorporate a number of categories that in fact have no place in a grammar of Present-day English, although they are perfectly valid for Latin (and in some cases older stages of English) ... Present-day English has no...