"Subjunctive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or by arbitrary rules of their own. Hence they have rejected many phrases of pure English, and substituted those which are neither English nor sense. Writers and grammarians have attempted for centuries to introduce a subjunctive mode into English, yet without effect; the language requires none distinct from the indicative; and therefore a subjunctive form stands in books only as a singularity, and people in practice pay no regard to it. ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... the word "if," does not always imply a conclusion, even in the mind of the propounder. Miss Brewster would have been hard put to it to round out her subjunctive. ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... inflection requires unnecessary thought. In the clause if he was here, if fully expresses the subjunctive condition, and it is quite unnecessary to express it a second time by using another form of the verb to be. And so the people who are using the English language are deciding, for the subjunctive form is rapidly becoming obsolete ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell
... used to express doubt, supposition or uncertainty or when some future action depends upon a contingency, it is in the subjunctive mood; as, "If I ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... classical Latin, the difficulties of which will be less likely to appal the beginner if some of them have been already conquered. I believe it a mistake to postpone all treatment of the uses of the subjunctive, for instance, or of the constructions of indirect discourse until the study of Nepos or Caesar is begun. Besides, it is easier to neglect notes than to supply them, and the teacher who prefers to do the first reading without much attention ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... neck, when the beast wheeled, and we seized her by the point where the copy-books say we ought to take Time, namely, the forelock. But we had poor luck. We ceased all caressing tone, and changed the subjunctive mood for the imperative. There never was a greater divergence of sentiment than at that instant between us and the bay mare. She pulled one way, we pulled the other. Turning her back upon us, she ejaculated into the air two shining horse-shoes, both the shape of the letter O, the one interjection ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... not without some sacrifices that the English-speaking peoples were permitted the satisfaction of hearing their speech used universally. The language was shorn of a number of grammatical peculiarities, the distinctive forms for the subjunctive mood for example and most of its irregular plurals were abolished; its spelling was systematised and adapted to the vowel sounds in use upon the continent of Europe, and a process of incorporating foreign ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... tenses they are want to begin with the same letter as in present tenses and to leave off the [Greek letter] in the word [Greek omitted], "priest" and [Greek omitted], "hawk." Besides, they add [Greek letter] to the third persons of the subjunctive mood, as when they say for [Greek omitted] "may have come," [Greek omitted], and for [Greek omitted], "may have taken," [Greek omitted]. This participle they add to the dative, [Greek omitted], "to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch |
