When I started this blog, I promised to talk about the subjunctive. I’ve put it off long enough. So, here goes.

I frequently read that the subjunctive is dying out, but I don’t think that is necessarily true, even though it doesn’t seem to be taught much in schools anymore except in foreign-language classes. Somehow, though, most people use the subjunctive mood correctly for certain idioms, for statements of wishing, for statements that are contrary to fact.

Let’s start with statements contrary to fact.

The mother of a teenager is not thinking subjunctive when she stands in the doorway of his bedroom (I use “his” from personal experience, not because I’m insensitive) and says, “If I were you, I’d clean up the room now!” In this exclamation “were” is subjunctive.

Usually with “I” as a subject, we’d say “am” or “was”: I was angry yesterday when I saw your room, and I am still angry today.”  This sentence is in the indicative mood, a straight statement of fact.

When a statement is not only hypothetical, but also most likely impossible (there is little chance that the mother will become her son), the subjunctive form of the verb is called for. Same thing in “If I were king,” unless perhaps your name is Charles.

Of course, it is not always easy determining when a statement is contrary to fact (subjunctive needed) and when it’s merely presenting a possibility (indicative needed). Not all sentences beginning with “if” require subjunctive (“If I was talking too loudly, I’m sorry”). Others definitely do (“If I were to live my life over again, I would learn how to play the piano”). And some could go either way, usually depending on how formal the writer or speaker is (If it weren’t/wasn’t for her good humor, we’d all be in trouble).

I think it is sentences such as this last one that lead people to think the subjunctive is dying. At one time there was little choice in the world of proper speech. Subjunctive was required. Today our speech is less formal and in sentences that are not strictly hypothetical, indicative is often used. In fact, the subjunctive sounds odd to many of our ears.

Which leads me to words in the blog of National Geographic’s Editor, Chris Johns: “Williams Lake, British Columbia—a buckaroo town if there ever was one.” That blog received a comment from “a faithful reader if ever there were one,” saying that even though NG does not stand for National Grammar, the Editor should use proper grammar and should have used “the subjunctive tense” when making a conditional statement.

Either “was” or “were” is correct to my thinking—and that of many other wordsmiths today. The use depends on how formal you want to be. The statement is not really contrary to fact; Williams Lake is a buckaroo town, one among many. The Editor is being emphatically informal, and that’s the way he wants to be in his blog. Faithful reader is apparently more formal, and that’s fine too. He should, though, not refer to the subjunctive as a tense. The subjunctive is a mood.

Whether this recent trend of using the indicative rather than subjunctive is a result of ignorance or a loosening of formal grammar, as forms of communication expand and include a broader segment of the population, is hard to say. It could well be both. But it has been an established and accepted use—at least by many—for a while now, and I see no return to the subjunctive any time soon in these constructions.

There are, however, still situations in which the subjunctive must be used. I will get to some of those in future blogs.

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