Please learn to use the subjunctive mood when appropriate

[Waffle_Decider]

@Hari_Seldon

I’ve mentioned this before, but in England, the subjunctive has disappeared. I discovered this when a book I coauthored was copy-edited in England and there were several dozen places with the copy-editor misunderstood the 3rd person present singular as an incorrect plural and requested that we change it to singular. Example: “She requested that he change it” and she (I always imagined it was a she) wanted to change “change” to “changes”. We refused and she didn’t pursue it. (We provided camera-ready copy, so had the final say.)

At any rate, I think it is a dead issue. Since both authors were born in 1937 and the copy-editor was likely born in 1960, it might also have been an age issue.

But surely it’s still “God save the queen” and not “God saves the queen”!

[Colophon]

Stoid - yes, I’m kidding!

And to Hari Seldon, I live in England and it’s nonsense to say that the subjunctive has disappeared. I wouldn’t say it’s used all the time, but it’s certainly not considered archaic. I’m a sub-editor (and born in the 1970s) and neither I nor any of my colleagues would strip subjunctives from copy. The problem was with your editor, not with British English.

[Malacandra]

@Waffle_Decider

But surely it’s still “God save the queen” and not “God saves the queen”!

That would be the iussive subjunctive - an implicit *request *that God should save ER. This is in contrast to a simple statement of fact (“God saves the Queen”) or the imperative mood (“God, save the Queen!”) which would be a highly impertinent manner in which to address the Almighty.

[Rachellelogram]

I don’t mind occasional grammar pedantry on forums (this thread is an interesting read). However, in person, hearing about it would cause me to slap (mentally) the pedant (with a large trout). And I use the “correct” form, so it’s not that I don’t know better. I just believe that usage determines grammar, and not the other way around.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Ring

For me “irregardless” and “I should have went,” are the ones that really suck canal water.

I’m an engineer, for God’s sake, but, even so, I couldn’t bring myself to say,“I wish I was in Dixie.”

During many years of working in IT departments, I was amazed how many well-educated native speakers of English would mess up words like “went”/“gone” and “ran”/“run” (past participle). It’s dumb to judge a person on something like that, I know; but good Lord, don’t we learn this stuff by the time we’re five or so? Well, no, maybe not, if nobody else in your family and community get it right either.

[dzero]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

During many years of working in IT departments, I was amazed how many well-educated native speakers of English would mess up words like “went”/“gone” and “ran”/“run” (past participle). It’s dumb to judge a person on something like that, I know; but good Lord, don’t we learn this stuff by the time we’re five or so? Well, no, maybe not, if nobody else in your family and community get it right either.

It’s not fair but you’re right, fair or not, it’s a fact of life. I think it’s analogous to the way certain regional accents are perceived. People with a profound southern drawl, whether it’s warranted or not, tend to conjure up images of Deliverance when they speak. The fact that the speaker might be a classics professor at Tulane does a little to take the edge off of that perception, but probably not as much as it should.

I used to work with someone who was born and raised in Brooklyn and apparently had a very heavy Brooklyn accent. But you wouldn’t know it to talk to him since he had worked very hard to lose that accent.

This is getting off topic, but at the other end of the extreme, I once had a professor from Oxford who had no discernible accent whatsoever. I asked him about that and in the somewhat smarmy way one would expect from an Oxford don, he told me that it was the way proper English was supposed to be spoken.