For example, in the sentence “His ailing sisters were confident of full recovery,” “be” takes the form “were” because the subject “sisters” is in the third-person plural and the action is in the past tense. The polar opposite of the indicative mood is the subjunctive mood, which conveys possibility, conditionality, or wishfulness rather than objective fact or condition. Given a hypothetical state or outcome, the subjunctive “were” is used in expressing the unreal or contrary-to-fact condition: “If its polar electromagnetic field were not there, Earth would be devastated by intense solar radiation.”4. Statements that cast doubt on observed behavior or raise a question about a presumed outcome often take the subjunctive “were” form: “That public official talks as if he were the only knowledgeable person in the universe.”After this refresher, most everyone everywhere surely will be using the subjunctive “were” more confidently. Next week: Revisiting the “who”/“whom” grammar conundrumVisit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com, and on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/jacarillo.

Source: Manila Times May 06, 2020 18:33 UTC