So at this point some of you might be
thinking, “'The board is frozen; long live the board' – but why
is it 'live'?” We know, on a level that feels almost instinctual
but is in fact a result of long ingrained language acquisition, that
it's live. We've heard often enough, “The king is dead; long live
the king.” We know, “Live long and prosper,” and we know that
these things are correct, but not all of us necessarily know why.
At first glance, something seems off.
It feels right, and indeed it is right, but why is it “Live”?
Live is present tense. It's what the doctor, who looks surprisingly
like Willy Wonka, yells at his creation, “Live, damn you. Live!
Why won't you live?” “Why won't you live?” refers to an
instant in time. Why, right here, right now, will you not live?
But “long live the king” and “live
long and prosper” are both talking about the future. Not the
present. And the future is, “Will live.” “He will live a long
time,” “She will live a good life,” “Ze will live a life of
prosperity.”
Yet you don't say, “long will live
the king,” though you probably could under a different set of
circumstances involving augury or time travel, and you would never
say, “Will live long and will prosper,” the way one says, “Live
long and prosper,” it would be an awkward and improper platitude.
And the reason is a question of mood.
You see sometimes there are good moods, and sometimes there are bad
moods, and sometimes there are up moods, and sometimes there are down
moods, and … wrong kind of mood.
I mean grammatical mood.
Verbs have tense, voice, mood, person,
number, aspect, and other things as well.
Tense is when something happened.
Voice is about who was doing the
action:
I hit it. Active. The subject is
doing the action.
I was hit by it. Passive. The subject
is acted upon.
When the action goes in a loop and so
ends where it began (I steadied myself / I was steadied by myself)
it's middle in languages that have it, but English doesn't so we're
moving on.
Mood is what this article is about, so
we'll get back to it.
Person is the whole first second third
person thing you've doubtless heard about:
I am. First person.
You are. Second person
He/she/it is. Third person.
“Am”, “are”, and “is” are
all versions of the same verb, but which one you use depends on
whether the subject is first second or third person, in the case of
this particular verb it also depends on number.
I am. Singular.
We are. Plural.
Aspect is about how long something
takes/whether it's complete, sort of.
I stood there. Perfect.
I was standing there. Imperfect.
A lot more could be written on aspect,
especially if we delve into ancient Greek because the aorist is …
well the aorist. But right now we're blowing through this stuff to
get back to mood. Which is why, “and other things as well” from
above isn't even going to be covered.
So, mood.
English has three moods: Happy, Sad
and... I'm not funny, am I?
English has three moods: Indicative,
Imperative, and Subjunctive.
Most of what we say is in the
indicative mood:
He went to the store.
She saved the world.
It does that a lot.
The indicative is about the way things
are. When you say, “It did happen,” you mean that it really
happened in the real world. When you say, “It is happening,” you
mean it is really happening in reality. When you say, “It will
happen,” then (barring time machines and the like) you're saying
that you believe it will actually happen.
The indicative is not hypothetical. It
is about the way things are. Even when you don't know the way things
are, it's still about that. When you ask, “Did it happen?”
you're asking for information about the non-hypothetical land of
reality.
It's not wishes or counterfactuals or
hopes. It's what was, what is, and what will be, to the best of the
knowledge of the speaker. (Unless the speaker is lying.)
Imperative is how we give orders. I
used it above.
“Live, damn you. Live!” is doctor
Frankenstein ordering his creation to come to life.
“Go to the store.” Is an order that
you go to the store.
“Go to Hell.” Is a command that you
go the place where Nicolae Carpathia will one day be doomed to
reside.
The same phrases, in different
contexts, can be different moods. For example, “Will you go to the
store?” is an indicative question. It's not, technically at least,
ordering the person to go to the store. It's asking them for
information on whether or not the person will do something in the
real world in the future.
We could do the same thing with another
of the phrases, “I did go to Hell,” contains the same words in
the same order as the last example I gave of an imperative command,
but it is instead a dubious claim about reality. Thus indicative.
And now, finally, we come to “Live
long and prosper.”
We're about to talk about the
subjunctive mood. Use it wisely; use it well.
Wikipedia has a page on the subjunctive
mood in general, and the version of it that exists in English-
Right here, right as I was getting to
the point of the article, I had to stop writing and move on to
something else. Then life hit me with the worst weekend ever.
There's no need to get into that here, I've talked about it
elsewhere, but I do want to apologize if there's an abrupt change in
tone or anything.
Wikipedia has a page on the subjunctive mood in general, and the version of it that exists in English;
they're reasonable places to go if you find me confusing or would
just like another source. There are other languages with more moods
than English, which means that English generally has to cram the same
amount of meaning into a smaller number of slots, and that can make
the subjunctive seem somewhat overloaded at some times, so let's
start from a simple place:
“Long live the King” expresses a
wish. It's not saying that the king will live long, we don't know
that, merely that we wish him to. “Live long and prosper,”
likewise is a language of wishing or hoping. It's talking about
something that may or may not come to be, but the speaker hopes will.
These are not talking about this world,
but the world that we hope this world will come to be. They're
talking about hypotheticals and, in pretty much all cases, that's
what the subjunctive does.
When you look at the world and see it
not just as it is, but also as it ought to be, you're in a
subjunctive frame of mind.
But it's not all about hopes and
dreams, it's also about other ways things might have gone, it's about
possibility and counterfactuals and fears and stuff. It's even about
orders.
And before I can talk about any of
that, I have to talk about tense lest we be confused.
The subjunctive tenses are, by
convention, named stupidly. They're named for what they resemble,
not when they happen. A “present subjunctive” isn't a
subjunctive verb referring to the present tense, it's a subjunctive
verb that looks vaguely like it belongs in the present tense to
people who don't know about the subjunctive. As I said, they're
named stupidly.
So, consider, “Live long and
prosper,” it's talking about the future. It is hoping that your
future life will be both long and prosperous. Is it called a future
subjunctive? No. Of course not. That would be too easy. It's
called a “present subjunctive” because “live” looks like
present tense and “prosper” looks like present tense, well, to me
they look like imperatives which generally don't have tense, but
that's another story. They can also be considered bare infinitives
(to live, to prosper, but without the “to”.)
So here we are calling something
present when it's talking about the future, and we'll call something
past when it's talking about the present, and pluperfect when it's
talking about the past. As I said, it's badly named. I said it
three times, it must be true.
OK, so let's get to talking about some
stuff.
If I was there...
If I were there...
These mean very different things. The
first one, which is indicative, indicates that I may well have been
there. It might be the start of the sentence, “If I was there why
don't I remember?” There is uncertainty about the past.
The second one means that I am not
there, but I'm about to talk about the hypothetical world in which,
at this present moment, I am there. “If I were there I'd feel a
lot better than I do being stuck here,” would be a completely
legitimate sentence to start that way.
But what if I wanted to be in the same
actual tense (as opposed to grammatical tense) as the first one?
What if I wanted to talk about the past instead of the present? Well
then I'd need to push the apparent tense back one notch:
If I had been there...
Say someone says I did something
somewhere last night, if I respond with:
“If I was there I wouldn't have done that,”
“If I was there I wouldn't have done that,”
I'm leaving open the possibility that I
really was there. If I instead respond with:
“If I had been there I wouldn't have
done that,”
I'm indicating that I was not there in
the first place.
If, on the other hand, I say:
“If I were there I wouldn't have done
that,”
I'm confusing my tenses all to hell,
because I'm indicating that if I were at that place now, I wouldn't
have done something in the past. That only makes sense coming from a
time traveler because the causality is backwards. Present events are
being said to influence past outcomes.
So, hopefully at this point you know
how to wish someone a long and prosperous life and how to deny even
being somewhere while still claiming that even had you been you
wouldn't have done the thing you're accused of doing, and you
understand why the song is, “If I were a rich man”
(emphasis added.)
There's also something named the
“future subjunctive” which, oddly enough considering the names of
the other subjunctive tenses, is about things taking place in the
future. “If we were to go to the four O'clock showing we wouldn't
get out until six.” We are not currently going, we have not
previously gone, so the possibility really is in the future.
Of course, I can also say, “If we go
to the four O'clock showing, we won't get out until six.” The
difference is that the future subjunctive is used of things deemed
unlikely by the speaker. “If I were to go outside I'd get wet, so
I will stay inside.” The person “were to”ing isn't expecting
it to happen.
When one says “If you were to go
through with this plan the result would be disaster,” the
expectation is that the person being spoken to will be talked out of
it.
Now that we've talked about the future,
let's talk about the past. Remember when I said, “lest we be
confused,” above? That's passive (“be confused” instead of
“confuse”) and subjunctive. Just as, “Lest we forget” is
subjunctive. Why is it subjunctive? Well because lest and
subjunctive go together really well. “Lest” indicates that the
speaker is trying to stop something from happening, that is they're
trying to make the thing that follows the “lest” remain
hypothetical and not become actual. And hypothetical is what the
subjunctive is all about.
Now that we've talked about things
people don't want to happen with “lest”, let's talk about things
that people do want to happen. There's a thing called the jussive
subjunctive, which I always mispronounce so don't ask me how to say
it. It's like the imperative but not. It can be used to express
orders, and requests and stuff.
Screamed at the top of one's lungs,
“Get out now!” - Imperative.
Low voice, menacing in its lack of
emotion, “I recommend you get out now.” Subjunctive.
“I insist that the revolution be
televised.” - Subjunctive.
“Televise the revolution.” -
Imperative.
You might notice that the subjunctive
here has more words, it lets you chose a verb of order/requesting
where the imperative just spits out the order. That's accurate.
Using the imperative is basically using a bare order, so it doesn’t
leave a lot of room for nuance amoung
order/insist/recommend/request/so on. That's not to say that you
need the subjunctive to get it, you can pull it off without the
subjunctive it's just a bit more awkward. Consider:
“Get out now. I recommend it.”
Imperative, indicative.
“Allow me to recommend something.
Get out now.” Imperative, Imperative. (The recommend is an
infinitive functioning as an object.)
“Televise the revolution. I insist.”
Imperative. Indicative.
So you can still get that, but it
becomes more awkward.
OK, I'm just going to close on using
the subjunctive to get rid of “If” by fiddling with the word
order.
“If I were a rich man...” Perfectly
good subjunctive usage
“Were I a rich man...” Means the
exact same thing as the above.
“If I had been there I'd've smacked
that dragon.” Bad for the stacking of contractions and the
unnecessary violence toward dragons, but otherwise fine use of the
subjunctive to express a contrary to fact conditional in the past.
“Had I been there I'd've smacked that
dragon.” Means exactly the same thing.
So, anyway, hopefully someone learned
something. I'd like this to make everyone start paying more
attention and using the subjunctive correctly because when I hear it
used wrong, or not used at all, it just rings wrong. Sometimes I
don't catch that it was screwing up the subjunctive; I'm just left
with this lingering sense of wrongness.
So I'd like this to solve all grammar
problems. Would that it were that simple.
-
Some notes:
- One of my proofreaders noted that I never
actually used the word “confounded” until it appeared in a
parenthetical where I treated it as if I had already used it in place
of the word I had actually used. That's true. It has been
corrected. But “confounded” is a fun word and as soon as I took
it out I wanted to work it back in somehow. Now I have.
- There are some things I have done above
grammatically that will make some people pull out their hair for
their wrongness, yet I think them right. Such is the way of things.
The way of the force.
- An argument can be made that there are
more than three moods in English.
- I mentioned the aorist. In ancient
Greek (I know nothing of modern Greek) the aorist has tense and
aspect. Sometimes it's all about tense, sometimes it's all about
aspect, a lot of the time it's about both. Tense is when something
happened. Aspect is how long it took/takes/will take.
So, for example, you would never have a past tense indicative because, barring time travel, you can't order something to have already done something. (Even if you could, it would be in their personal future.) You can have an imperative aorist. In that case it is entirely about aspect. It's about how long it takes. “Close the door (quickly)” would be an aorist imperative. “Close the door (slowly over a period of hours)” would not be an aorist imperative because the aspect is different.
It's more complicated than that, it usually is, but the basic thing is that aspect is about duration.
I like to think of it as ancient Greek allowing you to say, “Leave me alone!” and have the listener know whether you mean, “Leave me alone right now,” or, “Leave me alone forever,” but that too oversimplifies because most things with longer-than-aorist duration don't last forever. - I was going to add asterisks and have
this be a footnote, but since I have an entire notes section anyway I
am going to just put it here. I used the word “hopefully” above
in a way that is fairly fraught. I knew it when I did it, but I
didn't make any note about it. Hopefully is an adverb and thus
generally expected to modify something, usually the verb. Yet, I use
it apparently modifying nothing.
I see it as modifying the sense of the sentence. Consider, “Hopefully it will happen.” It is not saying that the happening will be filled with hope, rather that the speaking of the sentence is filled with hope. The speaker is full of hope that it will happen.
The online Merriam Webster dictionary notes other adverbs that are used by the speaker/writer to comment directly to the hearer/reader on the sentence to which the adverbs are attached listing a few examples (those being: interestingly, frankly, clearly, luckily, and unfortunately) in the process. Why was I at the online Merriam Webster dictionary? To check that the definition of “fraught” can be stretched to mean what I wanted it to mean two paragraphs ago.
Anyway all of this is to say that while I defend this usage of hopefully, at least one of my proofreaders finds it ugly. These disagreements happen.
-
By special request I shall now address
“may” and “might”. The will/shall dichotomy, on the other
hand, I'm not even going to touch. Anyone who does not like how I
used “shall” above, please pretend I used “will”.
These examples courtesy of the requester:
“He wasn't wearing a helmet, which
might have saved his life.” He died. If he had been wearing a
helmet it is possible that he would have lived. (That's probably what it means, I leave a
bit of wiggle room.)
“He wasn't wearing a helmet, which
may have saved his life.” He lived. If he had been wearing a
helmet it is possible that he would have died.
As you can see, these two things mean
the exact opposite of one another, so confusing them is a bad idea.
Both refer in some way to what could have been had
things been different, but they do it in different ways. The
difference here is actually tense "may" is in the present here, "might" is in the past. So when we say
that something may have been the cause of X where X is a past event,
we know that X already happened. Because if X didn't happen, then it
didn't have causes, which means that nothing
may have been the cause of X.
In the examples
we're talking about “saved his life” a past event. So if it's,
“may have saved his life,” then his life definitely was saved.
(Or the person writing/speaking doesn't understand English.)
Might is a little
trickier. If you're reading a headline you can probably assume he
died. But the fact is that might is the past tense of may, so it can
theoretically mean the same thing provided we're speaking entirely in
past tense which, in spite of my best attempts, I have been unable to
do in a way that doesn't sound completely awkward and painful and
unnatural.
Maybe it can be
done with sequence of tenses.
“He wasn't
wearing a helmet, which might have saved his life, and so from that
day forth he was an anti-helmet crusader.” But it still doesn't
really work. You just don't talk that way and it still reads as if
he died and was an anti-helmet crusader as a zombie.
In fact, the only
way I can see to do it is to take the usages they have in the future,
and yank them back into the past while adding words to flesh out what
I'm saying.
If X is in the
future, then may and might become different. “You may have caused
X” and “You might have caused X” both mean that X could happen.
Not will happen, not won't happen, just could happen. The
difference is in likelihood. When discussing future events "may" is
more likely than "might". So, “The test results are in and the world
might end tomorrow,” is a much better thing to hear than, “The
test results are in and the world may end tomorrow.”
So now, let me try
to drag that into the past and see if I can use "might" to save the
guy's life.
“He wasn't
wearing a helmet. That might have been what saved his life, or it
may have had something to do with the wizard casting a protection
spell on him.”
I
think that works. But
I had to explicitly state that his life was indeed saved to do it.
“He wasn't
wearing a helmet. That might have saved his life.”
I don't know. It's
still ambiguous as to whether the “that” refers to not wearing a
helmet, or wearing a helmet.
Regardless, the big
deal is this:
“Might” is the
past tense of “may”.
In the future tense
both words mean something has the potential to happen, but might
means it's less likely than may.
Both words are
about uncertainty. If the uncertainty is in the past tense then you
use “might”:
“They searched
the plane because they thought it might contain dinosaurs.”
Correct.
“They searched
the plane because they thought it may contain dinosaurs.”
Incorrect.
That's the reason
for the whole helmet thing above:
“He wasn't wearing a helmet, which
might have saved his life.” Since might is past tense it's
bringing us back to the event, it means we're talking about what
could possibly have been if things were different in the past. But
things weren't different, so we know he died. (Again, maybe. There's
potential for wiggle room, even if I haven't found it.)
“He wasn't wearing a helmet, which
may have saved his life.” Since may is present tense (certainly not
future and it is never past tense) it means that we're talking about
present uncertainty. Which means that the uncertainty isn't about
what may have happened if things had been different in the past (except in rather indirect ways.) It
is clearly not about what could possibly have been if he had been
wearing a helmet in the past. It can only mean that we're talking
about present uncertainty about the reason his life was saved. He
definitely lived.
In the future tense, they're about
different levels of uncertainty.
“We may go to the movies.” There is
a certain possibility that we will go to the movies.
“We might go to the movies.” There
is a certain possibility that we will go to the movies, but it's
definitely a smaller possibility than in the above sentence.
So finally I leave you with this one
simple observation:
If you use “might” when you should
have used “may”, you can probably make some kind of argument that
it was legitimate. It might not be a good argument, but the argument
can probably made.
If you use “may” when you should
have used “might” in any tense other than future, you're screwed.
There's no defense you can offer.
It's probably better to err on the side
of “might”.
My understanding of aorist, as taught in the UK in the mid 1980s, is purely as a tense: the form "I went", as opposed to "I was going" (imperfect) or "I have gone" (perfect). Thanks for expanding this...
ReplyDelete"I said it three times, it must be true."
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there.
So, in fact, with regard to your last few sentences, you are saying that 'might' makes right?
ReplyDelete(I'm sorry, I absolutely could not help myself. But I did appreciate the grammar reminder, and were I a better sort of person, I might have resisted the urge to make vile puns).
(I'm sorry, I absolutely could not help myself. But I did appreciate the grammar reminder, and were I a better sort of person, I might have resisted the urge to make vile puns).
ReplyDeleteActually, I feel a little better knowing that I wasn't the only one with the vile pun in my head.
In the future tense both words mean something has the potential to happen, but might means it's less likely than may.
ReplyDeleteWish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight, but I don't think it's very likely at all.
As for the subjunctive, I guess my first comment on the new site (may it live long and prosper) will be a quote, just like the old site. Because the poets always said it better.
Oh, the Subjunctive,
May it make its bold return!
May it ride back proud
In liveried coach,
May its two fine horses snort
And paw the ground,
And, escorted by its staunch
Attendants If and Whether,
May it descend in velvet cloak
And black-gloved hand
The lacquered steps of hope
And happenstance.
May it fix upon us its deep
Uncertain gaze!
I shall be there to greet it
Though my company
Be small and moody.
I shall beg it stay
And may its presence give
Some respite from the steely glare
Of Indicative, a mantle to shield us
From Passive's clammy chill.
May it light again the land
Between the world that was
And is, and that which still might be,
And may we tread again desire's
Leaf-dappled path
Of possibility.
- Tamara Madison
That was beautiful.
DeleteThank you for sharing it.
Yay! I missed Amaryllis-posted poetry. This is starting to feel like the Slacktiverse already!
DeleteYou're welcome.
DeleteAnd just to make things perfectly clear, when I say the poets say things better, I mean "better than I can say them," only.