By Subjunctives, Expressions

Swiss Jake wrote: 1. I wish he would stop complaining. 2.I wish he should stop complaining. I want to know that after the word "wish" which word I should use between "would"/"should". Hi, doesn't "to whish" trigger the subjunctive and therefore "should" must be used? For...

1. I wish he would stop complaining. 2.I wish he should stop complaining. I want to know that after the word "wish" which word I should use between "would"/"should". Hi, doesn't "to whish" trigger the subjunctive and therefore "should" must be used? For instance: If I were...

"investigates" would be wrong. After certain expressions (require that ..., insist that ..., demand that ..., it is important that ..., etc.), the "s" inflection is not used. It's called the subjunctive. The link Paco gave you will explain it in more detail. CJ

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...

I am not a grammar expert, but for additional rules regarding the subjucntive verb usage, you can go to http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html 1. "It smells as if someone has been smoking in here." ( I think maybe someone has been smoking) Correct 2. "Do you hear that music? It...

Hi everyone!! I've got a problem. My grammar book would say "They are looking at me as if I were mad". I know I could use like instead of as if in informal situations, and I could also use was instead of were (informal again), but I'm confused about present tense usage where you should use the...

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,...

Schoolteacher wrote: We can sometimes use Simple Past to refer to the present and this is called Unreal Past.........you know......for wishes.......eg. I wish I were rich!!!( but i'm not)..........to wish for something that we wanted to be different in the present but it's not. In this category...

Hello MrPedantic, yep, you are quite right! Then {with X} and {without X} (should?) have the same status, in principle, as expressions which set some 'condition.' Then we have to seek purely 'pragmatic' explanations to account for the oddity, as you and Clive did. (I won't disagree!) I'm...

"God blesses you" would be stating a fact, which is not the meaning of the expression. So yes, it may be a shortened version of "May God bless you", or 'simply' a subjunctive. See "God save the queen", or "Long live the king". As to the other, I have no idea, sorry...