Re: Necessity of Conculture?

John Cowan wrote:

> Tom Wier scripsit:
>
> > Yet the dialects of the American colonies preserved
> > features that have largely disappeared or are disappearing in Britain today:
> > rhoticness, which though still there in some dialects is certainly not very well
> > looked upon;  lexical items like the American "Fall" for British "Autumn";
> > and grammatical features, like the American past participle "gotten" for RP
> > "got".
>
> And the present subjunctive!
Interesting.  Is that really gone from even standard British English?  Things like

"The Judge ordered that the man be put in confinement" and
"If *I* were a lumberjack..."

are fairly commonly heard, hereabouts.  Recently, I was in a conversation,
and heard someone say "Whether he be..."  and I couldn't pay much attention,
because I started wondering exactly what the extent of present subjunctive
use was.  I kinda think that it's limited to a few phrases, triggered by words
like "whether", while other words which used to do the same thing (like "if")
don't trigger the same effect anymore.   The subjunctive form "were" is particularly
under attack at the moment.  I don't think it'll last another century.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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