By TOEFL, Subjunctives

Yoong Liat wrote: The teacher said, "The world is round." In reported speech, it would be The teacher said that the world is round. One of my English usage books says it can be reported as The teacher said that the world was round. ( was consistent with said in tense) What do you think? ...

Hello people I don't like to talk much about the subjunctive stuffs because it sounds difficult to find agreement between 'prescriptivists' and 'descriptivists'. (But I would like to say that, if I were a young ESL student, I certainly would choose prescriptivists as my English teachers because,...

It is strange that you _____ say such a thing. (1)would (2)should The answer is (2). Mine is (1). It dealt with the willingness of a person to say such a thing. I think 'should' is so strong that it forms one type of request or order. So I consider it not suitable. But obvious, I'm wrong....