On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:10:23 GMT, Miss Elaine Eos
<Misc@*your-shoes*PlayNaked.com> wrote:
> In article <slrndpdsna.ldo.chris@ccserver.keris.net>,
> Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net> wrote:
>
>> > "If I were to be born again, I shall be a great scholar" sounds a bit
>> > off to my [American] ear. It's not QUITE mixed-tenses, but it has that
>> > same "not quite right" ring to it.
>
>> The subjunctive is difficult to get right, and is often mangled in
>> modern English (and American), many people use 'was' instead of 'were'.
>> It's one of the oddities of English tenses that an apparent past plural
>> ('were') is used for a singular future. In modern English the present
>> is often heard instead ("If I am to be born again") with an implication
>> of slightly more certainty (or at least less uncertainty).
>
> Actually, now that I look at it again, wouldn't the matching tenses be
> more along the lines of "if I am to be born again, I shall be a great
> scholar" or "if I were to be born again, I would be a great scholar"..?
That certainly sounds better. Matching 'were' with 'would' (or
'should') and 'am' with 'will' (or 'shall') is, as Fowler puts it, a
matter of the sequence of tenses (the tense and mood of a later part of
the sentence agreeing with the earlier part). I can't see any actual
rules for this case but it certainly 'feels' right.
> Even though it's clear that to be born again is some future event, "if I
> were" seems to have an already-completed feeling, even with the
> following "to be", which is clearly future. The whole "if I were to be"
> phrase seems to carry a sort of "once it's over and done with, and we
> are in THAT event's future" type of meaning.
Hmm, I see it the other way round. I'd put it as the following:
If I were to do it (which I am not expecting to be the case) then I
would...
(A slightly older formulation is "Were I to do it...")
If I am to do it (which I am considering, or it may have been decided)
then I will...
In particular I have heard the latter used in a somewhat resigned way,
with 'if' being a substitute for 'since' (as in "Since I am [going] to
do it, I will do it this way").
The subjunctive is a very muddy area. Indeed, later revisions of Fowler
reduce it to a few examples of modern practice (it is mentioned that one
treatise on grammar had over 150 pages on the subjunctive alone!) and
even advise that in most cases it should probably not be used (so of
course, I just used it in this sentence -- the useful American word
'ornery' applies to me!).
> I realize that you are more expert than I in this area, and so pose the
> preceding as a question.
I am, of course, coming from a British basis, and at that I am probably
more prone to archaisms than most of my contemporaries. I can't find in
either of the editions of Fowler I have any clear guidance as to the
precise meanings, or indeed whether there is actually any such
precision, it way well be a matter of 'local' (temporal as well as
positional) variation.
Chris C
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