After a full-dress review of the subjunctive in the preceding chapters, this form of the English language should no longer hold any terrors for us. With a clearer understanding of its uses and ...

“If there were a Form 3, you would have already filled it out.” Reader Jessica had a question about a sentence like this. The speaker already knew about a Form 1 and a Form 2. The existence of Form 3, ...

The subjunctive actually acts in several other baffling ways in addition to this deviant behavior, thus making its usage even more confusing to many people. To increase our confidence in using the ...

For grammar bullies “the subjunctive” is sacred ground. Reforms proposed for the British national curriculum in 2012 required teaching use of the subjunctive not later than sixth grade. People seem to ...

There’s a one-word key to finding the answer: subjunctive. That’s the term for the grammar dynamic that determines whether “was” or “were” is best here. Armed with that one little word, you can ...