You can read the entire post at The Language Log: The Subective Tense:
Subjective tense
William Safire's most recent "On Language" column (NYT Magazine 3/30/08, p. 18) looks at the now-famous quote from Geraldine Ferraro, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Then comes a parenthetical digression on grammar:
"Get this," Sam Pakenham-Walsh, member of the Nitpickers League, said in an e-mail message, "we no longer use the subjective tense! Has all our education been for naught?" Because Ferraro's statement posed a condition contrary to fact, her "if Obama was a white man" should have been were.
Yes, "subjective tense", in a grammar peeve. Has all our education been for naught?
Seems this particular language nitpicker was outraged because Ms. Ferraro neglected to use the subjunctive form which should have been: "If Obama were a white man,...". Of course the irony of the nitpicking is that he wrongly identifies the subjunctive mood as the subjective tense and then laments, "Has all our education been for naught?" Apparently his education was. I guess if you're going to nit-pick, it's a good idea to get your terms right.
1 comment:
Having done some writing for a living (opinion columns, book reviews, news stories and related research) for a time, it DID occur to me that the phrase would have sounded "more correct" grammatically if it was "If Obama WERE a white man."
But I don't pretend to have the technical aspects of our wonderfully complex language mastered well enough to get upset about THAT aspect of Ms. Ferraro's awkward quote.
Yet, I do appreciate reading about such distinctions in small enough doses, like your blog post here.
Thanks again.
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