Don't Participate in the Death of the Subjunctive

The English language has but three moods, and one of them—the subjunctive—is dying. Unlike their abused and misunderstood sister, the indicative and the imperative live lives of luxury, basking in the certainty that they will never be without work, as humans will always need either to be doing something or to be ordering someone else to do it for them.

But not so for the lowly subjunctive, that Cinderella of moods: trampled, despised, ignored, and yet imbued with such fragile beauty that even the most unregenerate misogrammatist would pause if he knew how near his carelessness was bringing her to the brink of oblivion.

2 comentarios:

Carmen dijo...

Two other things that are doomed: the difference between who and whom, and the difference between less and fewer in regard to count and noncount nouns. Dentro de poco, nos ponemos dinosaurios, Juanito.

http://dicecarmen.blogspot.com/2009/10/less-anxiety-fewer-worries.html

John Pluecker dijo...

pablo - ps es un chiste. tampoco lo dije en serio. no creo que realmente se pueda hacer algo. aunque me siga gustando el subjuntivo en espanish.

carmen - yes we are doomed in general pienso yo.