A Conversation for Use of the Subjunctive Mood in Modern English
Subjunctive Mood in Modern English
PedanticBarSteward Started conversation Jan 31, 2006
With the greatest respect - all that might be perfectly correct but a complete load of spherical objects.
I speak English, teach it and try and write ways of understanding it to help the people I teach. I cannot understand what you have written - maybe a French speaker might.
I speak a form of English, which whilst being lauded as 'correct', is probably spoken by less than half of one percent of the people in the world who speak English. The rules - fixed pretty rigidly since the time of Gutenburg - apply to written English but not to spoken English.
My (Moroccan) wife says:
I go see my sister yesterday
I go see my sister now
I go see my sister tomorrow
Written - it is absurd - but you can understand the meaning. I Have lived and worked with over 60 different nationalities (not as a teacher) for over 30 years. I change my English to fit the people I speak to.
THAT is the real strength of English.
I have written about it - I tried to put something here but the pedantic bastards that filter things on h2g2 quibbled about the way it was written - where a Roman Emperor said "I came I saw " etc and I gave up.
Anyway good luck - this will not be something I copy and paste for the edification of those daft enough to pay me to teach them this crazy language.
Good sparring on the other threads - I hope.
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Subjunctive Mood in Modern English
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