{"id":74,"date":"2020-08-11T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=74"},"modified":"2021-02-25T13:42:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T19:42:17","slug":"subjunctive-mood-and-some-confusing-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/effective-writing\/subjunctive-mood-and-some-confusing-words\/","title":{"rendered":"The Subjunctive Mood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An e-newsletter fan came across this sentence:\u00a0<em>If I were very lucky, I would get the chance to go.<\/em> She asked, \u201cShouldn\u2019t\u00a0<em>I<\/em>\u00a0be followed by\u00a0<em>was<\/em>, not\u00a0<em>were<\/em>, since\u00a0<em>I\u00a0<\/em>is singular?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Let us answer that by asking you a question: Are you old enough to remember the ad jingle that began, \u201cI wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener \u2026\u201d? These two sentences are both examples of the subjunctive mood, which refers to the expression of a hypothetical, wishful, imaginary, or factually contradictory thought. The subjunctive mood often pairs singular subjects with what we usually think of as plural verbs. The subjunctive is often used in \u201cthat,\u201d \u201cif,\u201d and \u201cwish\u201d clauses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Examples:<\/strong><br \/>\nShe requested that\u00a0<em>he raise<\/em> his hand.<br \/>\nIf <em>I were<\/em> rich, I\u2019d sail around the world.<br \/>\nHe wishes <em>he were<\/em> in a position to give his employees raises.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, <em>he raise<\/em> would sound terrible to us. However, in the first example above, where a request or wish is being expressed, <em>he raise<\/em> is correct. In the next two examples, a thought or wish contrary to fact is being expressed; therefore, <em>were<\/em>, which we normally think of as a plural verb, is used with singular subjects (<em>I,<\/em>\u00a0<em>he<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>In general, use the <strong>past perfect<\/strong> tense when using the subjunctive mood with verbs besides <em>were<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Examples:<\/strong><br \/>\nI wish I <em>had studied<\/em> more for the test.<br \/>\nIt would be better if you <em>had brought<\/em> the ice cream in a cooler.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pop Quiz<\/strong><br \/>\nSelect the correct verbs in the following sentences:<\/p>\n<p>1. If I <strong>was\/were<\/strong> stronger, I would have won that race.<br \/>\n2. I wish he <strong>was\/were<\/strong> able to come to the party earlier.<br \/>\n3. If she <strong>was\/were<\/strong> truly your friend, she wouldn\u2019t talk behind your back.<br \/>\n4. I wish I <strong>practiced\/had practiced<\/strong> piano when I was younger.<br \/>\n5. If she <strong>had gone\/went<\/strong> to the store on Saturday, she would have received a discount.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. If I <strong>were<\/strong> stronger, I would have won that race.<br \/>\n2. I wish he <strong>were<\/strong> able to come to the party earlier.<br \/>\n3. If she <strong>were<\/strong> truly your friend, she wouldn\u2019t talk behind your back.<br \/>\n4. I wish I <strong>had practiced<\/strong> piano when I was younger.<br \/>\n5. If she <strong>had gone<\/strong> to the store on Saturday, she would have received a discount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An e-newsletter fan came across this sentence:\u00a0If I were very lucky, I would get the chance to go. She asked, \u201cShouldn\u2019t\u00a0I\u00a0be followed by\u00a0was, not\u00a0were, since\u00a0I\u00a0is singular?\u201d Let us answer that by asking you a question: Are you old enough to remember the ad jingle that began, \u201cI wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener \u2026\u201d? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,43,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effective-writing","category-subject-and-verb-agreement","category-verbs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}