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April 18, 2005

Subjunctive

As the Flea is often in a subjunctive mood I should be attracting brainy types left and right.

I record this by way of assisting any of our conservative student readers who would like to find a soul mate. There is no more distinctive marker of the conservative sensibility than accurate use of the subjunctive mood in speech. Outside we few, we happy few conservative intellectuals, use of the subjunctive in spoken speech has pretty much died out. (Would it were otherwise!) But at least we have this tiny verbal marker with which to identify each other, like a Masonic handshake.

(via The Tiger in Winter)

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 18, 2005 09:19 AM

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Comments

Wasn't one of the things that was supposed to mark John Kerry as an effete, out-of-touch liberal was his use of phrases like "would it were so"?

Posted by: Andrew Coyne [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 18, 2005 11:43 PM

Totally hadn't thought of that.

I guess the difference there is that conservative pedants would claim to use the subjunctive for greater precision, whereas Kerry used his language to obfusticate.

Or is that just negative spin?

Posted by: Ben [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 19, 2005 09:30 AM