Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

Ayaz Ahmed Khan <resilient@myrealbox.com> wrote on 05 Jan 2004:

I don't see the point. You say you don't respect me, so there's no
reason to ask for my opinion. If you don't respect me, then my
opinions about the use of the subjunctive, or what Raymond Wise's ELI
source says in definitely not a subjunctive, would be of no use to
you. You would have to reject it.

I don't remember that one.

I actually *did* suggest a different position for the adverb, but, as
you are well aware, adverbs usually do not have a fixed position in
English; they can go anywhere. But in some cases, they sound better
and read better and are much easier to understand in one or two
places than in the other places they can go. It's a matter of style
to a certain extent, but sometimes it's more about clarity. And
sometimes it's about both.  

Did I warp and distort the facts? I vaguely remember that exchange,
but that's all I remember of it. It's there on Google as a matter of
public record, but I normally prefer to forget the past and deal with
the present.

I didn't realize that I had caused you that much pain or irritation,
but as you can see from our current exchange, I am no longer into
such unpleasantry.

The entire sentence was "I think if the word _Linux_ were not mentioned, I
would have resisted the temptation successfully of replying to Simon, as I
had been doing so far."

The "were"-subjunctive, also called (somewhat confusingly) the past
subjunctive, is inappropriate here, because the hypothetical condition is
set in the past: It exists, so to speak, in the past of an alternate
universe. The following is from Tom McArthur's *Oxford Companion to the
English Language.* The passage bracketed between double asterisks
demonstrates my point. Note also the reference at the end to "the purely
hypothetical past" for which the word "had" is used.

[quote]

The 'past' subjunctive is now often called the _were_-subjunctive, because
this is the only form in which there is a distinction from the indicative,
and then only in the first- and third-person singular: _If I were you ..._
as opposed to _If I was you._ **It is used with present and future (not
past) reference in various hypothetical clauses, including condition:** _If
only I were young again; If he were asked, he might help; This feels as if
it were wool; I wish she were here now; Suppose this were discovered; I'd
rather it were concealed._ In popular and non-formal speech and writing, the
_were_-subjunctive is often replaced by the indicative _was,_ which brings
this verb into line with other verbs, where the past tense is similarly used
for hypotheses about the present and future: _If only I knew how; I'd rather
you said nothing._ _Were is,_ however, widely preferred in _If I were you
..._ In the fixed phrase _as it were_ (_He's captain of the ship, as it
were_), _were_ cannot be replaced by _was._ The use of
_were_ instead of _was_ to refer to a real past possibility is generally
considered an over-correction: If I were present on that occasion, I
remember nothing of it. This contrasts with the purely hypothetical past,
_If I had been present ...,_ which strongly implies_ but I was not._.

[end quote]

I have taken the passage you wrote and rewritten it to represent the
situation appropriately:

"I think if the word _Linux_ had not been mentioned, I would have
successfully resisted the temptation to reply to Simon, as I had been doing
up to that point."

Also sprach Mike Lyle:

He didn't retract the "forced", he simply expressed regret for posting.

"Mike Lyle" typed:

I don't mean to take back what I said to Simon. As I have mentioned
else where in this thread, I meant every word of it. If anything, I
only regret my having pushed the send button. I have killfiled him. I don't
care if he persists in his barking --- that's what he knows best to
do, as I have been observing in all those cross-posted posts from AUE
to AEU, for I don't read AUE.