Improper formation of the
subjunctive! The subjunctive is the
verbal mood
1 used to express possible or contrary to fact statements.
Compare:
"
I am healthy"
with
"
If I were healthy, I would climb Mt. Everest."
These sentences clearly express different verbal moods, and people do recognize a difference, but most of the time, when people want to express the second sentence, they say
"If I was healthy, I would climb Mt. Everest.
rrrr. The simple past tense active or passive voice subjunctive of the verb to be is WERE.
For all other verbs the simple past tense active or passive voice subjunctive is the same as the indicative, as in
"If he ran, he would get there on time.
Ok… but this is only the beginning.
How about this:
"He is here"
versus
"It is essential that he be here."
These sentences are simple present tense, and the latter is, of course the subjunctive form, and people recognize that. The simple present tense active or passive voice subjunctive is just the infinitive stem of the verb. But people will also say things like:
"It is essential that he runs all the way"
If you put the verb to be in the subjunctive, why don't you realize the need to do it with other verbs? The last sentence should be:
"It is essential that he run all the way"
Enough of this selective proper subjunctiving!
On the topic of using object
pronouns as subjects which
InfiniteVoid brings up, as in "
Me and him went to the mall"... many people have realized how grating this is on the ears and of late
there has been an equally revolting trend in the other direction! Now people say things like "
He gave those reports to Steve and I." rrrrr. So let's get this straight.
Subject pronouns:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You
They
Object pronouns:
Me
You
Him/Her/It
Us
You
Them
1 Yes, the subjunctive is a
mood, not a
tense. This is another GPP of mine.