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One of my favourite quirks of English (that obscure language from a small island) is: "If it were up to me..." That's the correct grammar for when you have a

One of my favourite quirks of English (that obscure language from a small island) is: "If it were up to me..." That's the correct grammar for when you have a conditional argument. I know that a lot of Americans don't know this rule at all (especially musicians) but I suspect that it is a regional thing and not strictly US vs. Brit. Note that if the conditional reflects something that really happened, then you use was as usual. "If I was wrong by saying that..."

mehrdadn 6y ago
I think that's subjunctive, right? Subjunctive in English is indeed really obscure... I seem to recall the rules being weird in English, but I think it was something along the lines of: you have to use subjunctive when the hypothetical would be outright impossible? (e.g. "If I were you") In your example it's unclear whether that's the case or not as it might depend on the context, so my understanding was it might need to be indicative in that case. I think that's a bit different from being conditional, though, right?
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  I don't think it needs to be impossible, merely hypothetical. For example, I might say, "If I were to go into town today, is there anything you would like me to get for you?"
- DFHippie 6y ago
  It's past subjunctive. The present subjunctive is still around but scarce: "Lest he think less of me" or, in a frozen expression, "Be it ever so humble ...".
- pge 6y ago
  yes - subjunctive. It comes from English's Germanic roots. Compare the German, "Wenn ich König von Deutschland wäre..." to the English translation, "If I were King of Germany..." and note the similarity of the verbs "wäre" and "were." In English, what looks like a plural form ("were") in place of a singular ("was") actually comes from a Germanic singular form of the subjunctive. Both the German words "waren" (plural indicative form - "we/they were ...") and "wäre" (singular subjunctive form - "(if) I/he were") become "were" in English. (And to confuse things, in English, the plural subjunctive is also "were" and is thus indistinguishable from the indicative. "We were kings..." v. "If we were kings...") In both languages, the subjunctive is used in this case for a condition contrary to fact - I am not the King of Germany (nor am I a German pop singer from the 80s!).
- lmkg 6y ago
  The subjunctive and conditional are complimentary. In the construction "If X then Y," X will be in the subjunctive and Y will be in the conditional. The conditional also comes up on its own in lots of places, but the subjunctive rarely exists outside of contexts that could be re-written in that form.
- mikorym 6y ago
  The other interesting thing about the subjunctive is that it is not preserved in translation. For example: "Que tengas un buen día," would translate to: "Have a nice day." So, in Spanish the subjunctive is not strictly used for conditional situations. It is not really that you consider that the other person may have a bad day. The closest way to say that in English is: "May you have a nice day." Like a lot of commentators are observing, it is not that clear whether you need a subjunctive. In fact, if you look at Afrikaans, there are only four tenses: past, present, future and historical present. And Afrikaans is considered a full scientific languages: You can translate any scientific article into Afrikaans. On the topic of languages from South Africa, you also have noun classes in all of the 9 official languages that are not derived from European languages. These classes are a type of concord that have nothing to do with tense, but rather with types of nouns. They are also not strictly necessary, but they make it easier to follow a conversation. One way in which they achieve this is that if you say something like "I have an axe and a shovel," and later that "I often use it in the garden," then you will be able to know which one of the two you are referring to since they are in different classes and the word "it" need to be in concord with the noun. If they are in the same class, then you don't have concord distinction when referring to the object. I think the development of this feature are more to distinguish objects and subjects in sentences, as they are more likely to be different types of objects (e.g.: a human and a thing) and hence more likely to be in different noun classes. An axe being in a different class than a shovel is more of an coincidence.
Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
As an American, I've noticed that Brits tend to use the subjunctive form less often than we Americans do. "The doctor insisted that he spend the night." vs. "The doctor insisted that he spent the night." The first sentence is how I would say it. The second sentence sound very British to me.
- willyt 6y ago
  Us British would say the first if the doctor has (in the past) insisted that you will (in the future) spend the night and the second if you (in the past) spent the night because the doctor insisted. Is that not the same in the US?
  - LyndsySimon 6y ago
    I doubt very many people in the US would give it enough thought to distinguish between those cases. It would be ambiguous, and if the speaker were needing to be more specific they would explicitly add context: "The doctor insisted that he spend the night tonight".
  - Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
    Interesting, I wasn't aware that there was a such distinction in British English between the two. Thanks for sharing. I would use the second sentence for both cases. If I needed to distinguish them, I'd probably add something like "last week" or something to clarify things.
- lmkg 6y ago
  But that's present vs past tense, which is independent of the subjunctive mood. The indicative version of the first sentence would be "insisted that he spends." While placing the verb form into the past tense sounds odd to my American ears, the form "spent" could be either indicative or subjunctive. (The subjective is formed by using the plural form, which makes it indistinguishable in many cases, including the past tense of regular verbs.)
  - Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
TeMPOraL 6y ago
I'm waiting for a TV cop procedural where the hero is a grammar nazi. - Hey, how did you know he was the perp? He wasn't even on our suspects list! - Remember when we asked him about our victim? He said, "If it was up to me", not "If it were"... which clearly suggested it was up to him.
andy_wrote 6y ago
I don't know that this is regional so much as colloquial vs. formal. In the US people recognize that the subjunctive is technically correct and use it in formal writing. But it's very common to violate this rule in speech, so much so that to my ears it sounds less "wrong" than "informal." As far as musicians go, you can find examples of people on both sides of the pond using or not using the subjunctive. Beyoncé sings "If I were a boy," while Thom Yorke sings "I wish I was special."

mehrdadn 6y ago

I think that's subjunctive, right? Subjunctive in English is indeed really obscure... I seem to recall the rules being weird in English, but I think it was something along the lines of: you have to use subjunctive when the hypothetical would be outright impossible? (e.g. "If I were you") In your example it's unclear whether that's the case or not as it might depend on the context, so my understanding was it might need to be indicative in that case. I think that's a bit different from being conditional, though, right?

goodcanadian 6y ago
I don't think it needs to be impossible, merely hypothetical. For example, I might say, "If I were to go into town today, is there anything you would like me to get for you?"
DFHippie 6y ago
It's past subjunctive. The present subjunctive is still around but scarce: "Lest he think less of me" or, in a frozen expression, "Be it ever so humble ...".
pge 6y ago
yes - subjunctive. It comes from English's Germanic roots. Compare the German, "Wenn ich König von Deutschland wäre..." to the English translation, "If I were King of Germany..." and note the similarity of the verbs "wäre" and "were." In English, what looks like a plural form ("were") in place of a singular ("was") actually comes from a Germanic singular form of the subjunctive. Both the German words "waren" (plural indicative form - "we/they were ...") and "wäre" (singular subjunctive form - "(if) I/he were") become "were" in English. (And to confuse things, in English, the plural subjunctive is also "were" and is thus indistinguishable from the indicative. "We were kings..." v. "If we were kings...") In both languages, the subjunctive is used in this case for a condition contrary to fact - I am not the King of Germany (nor am I a German pop singer from the 80s!).
lmkg 6y ago
The subjunctive and conditional are complimentary. In the construction "If X then Y," X will be in the subjunctive and Y will be in the conditional. The conditional also comes up on its own in lots of places, but the subjunctive rarely exists outside of contexts that could be re-written in that form.
mikorym 6y ago
The other interesting thing about the subjunctive is that it is not preserved in translation. For example: "Que tengas un buen día," would translate to: "Have a nice day." So, in Spanish the subjunctive is not strictly used for conditional situations. It is not really that you consider that the other person may have a bad day. The closest way to say that in English is: "May you have a nice day." Like a lot of commentators are observing, it is not that clear whether you need a subjunctive. In fact, if you look at Afrikaans, there are only four tenses: past, present, future and historical present. And Afrikaans is considered a full scientific languages: You can translate any scientific article into Afrikaans. On the topic of languages from South Africa, you also have noun classes in all of the 9 official languages that are not derived from European languages. These classes are a type of concord that have nothing to do with tense, but rather with types of nouns. They are also not strictly necessary, but they make it easier to follow a conversation. One way in which they achieve this is that if you say something like "I have an axe and a shovel," and later that "I often use it in the garden," then you will be able to know which one of the two you are referring to since they are in different classes and the word "it" need to be in concord with the noun. If they are in the same class, then you don't have concord distinction when referring to the object. I think the development of this feature are more to distinguish objects and subjects in sentences, as they are more likely to be different types of objects (e.g.: a human and a thing) and hence more likely to be in different noun classes. An axe being in a different class than a shovel is more of an coincidence.

Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago

As an American, I've noticed that Brits tend to use the subjunctive form less often than we Americans do. "The doctor insisted that he spend the night." vs. "The doctor insisted that he spent the night." The first sentence is how I would say it. The second sentence sound very British to me.

willyt 6y ago
Us British would say the first if the doctor has (in the past) insisted that you will (in the future) spend the night and the second if you (in the past) spent the night because the doctor insisted. Is that not the same in the US?
- LyndsySimon 6y ago
  I doubt very many people in the US would give it enough thought to distinguish between those cases. It would be ambiguous, and if the speaker were needing to be more specific they would explicitly add context: "The doctor insisted that he spend the night tonight".
- Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
  Interesting, I wasn't aware that there was a such distinction in British English between the two. Thanks for sharing. I would use the second sentence for both cases. If I needed to distinguish them, I'd probably add something like "last week" or something to clarify things.
lmkg 6y ago
But that's present vs past tense, which is independent of the subjunctive mood. The indicative version of the first sentence would be "insisted that he spends." While placing the verb form into the past tense sounds odd to my American ears, the form "spent" could be either indicative or subjunctive. (The subjective is formed by using the plural form, which makes it indistinguishable in many cases, including the past tense of regular verbs.)
- Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago

TeMPOraL 6y ago

I'm waiting for a TV cop procedural where the hero is a grammar nazi. - Hey, how did you know he was the perp? He wasn't even on our suspects list! - Remember when we asked him about our victim? He said, "If it was up to me", not "If it were"... which clearly suggested it was up to him.

andy_wrote 6y ago

I don't know that this is regional so much as colloquial vs. formal. In the US people recognize that the subjunctive is technically correct and use it in formal writing. But it's very common to violate this rule in speech, so much so that to my ears it sounds less "wrong" than "informal." As far as musicians go, you can find examples of people on both sides of the pond using or not using the subjunctive. Beyoncé sings "If I were a boy," while Thom Yorke sings "I wish I was special."