# Grammar question--"that it comes" vs. "that it come"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 7, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968 "2009-10-07T19:12:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@The\_Seventh\_Deadly\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Seventh_Deadly_Finn)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968/21 "2009-10-08T12:50:26Z")
> [@statsman1982](#):
>
> I don’t think any of them will notice the “come”. 😛
Oh, sure-- that’s what Bill Clinton thought, and look what happened to _him_.
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### Author:  [@Xotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xotan)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968/22 "2009-10-08T22:37:42Z")
‘Come’ in this context is an hortative subjunctive - an indirect command.
In the neo-Latin languages (Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan and French the use of the subjunctive (which has a distinct form in these languages) is absolutely required in such a situation.
In English, however, it is very much on the wane. Nevertheless, there are still interesting relics: ‘If I **were** you’; 'though it **be** more important to you, it means nothing to me. Interesting, eh? No. Thought not.
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968/23 "2009-10-09T00:59:26Z")
> [@Xotan](#):
>
> In English, however, it is very much on the wane. Nevertheless, there are still interesting relics: ‘If I **were** you’; 'though it **be** more important to you, it means nothing to me. Interesting, eh? No. Thought not.
Interesting relics? It grates on me anytime some idiot says “If I was you…” ::shudder::
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### Author:  [@Xotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xotan)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-that-it-comes-vs-that-it-come/512968/24 "2009-10-09T19:26:09Z")
> [@Balthisar](#):
>
> Interesting relics? It grates on me anytime some idiot says “If I was you…” ::shudder::
I would tend to say “if I were you”. And “Though there be…” But then I suppose I am a bit of a dinosaur. And my location in Europe requires me to use French and Italian on a very regular basis. The old ‘il faut’ of French demands, nay, insists on a following subjunctive. But even in French the past Subjunctive is only used in formal texts.
Italian, however, still has a fairly healthy subjunctive system, and it is used in both present and past forms. Mess it up and you have lost your argument already.
But what really does my head in is the confusion between ‘may’ and ‘might’ in English. The proper application of the Sequence of Tenses is left to a few brave souls. It is the last barrier between the classical language and the invasion of the great unwashed. :eek:
A final point is the nauseating use of ‘ecsetera’. I recall this being used back in the late 1960s, and thought it would soon vanish. How wrong I was. It still thrives. And this despite Yul Brynner’s use of the correct form in the film ‘The King and I’. No doubt! Fings ain’t wot vay use ter be! 🙂
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