Print this page
|
|
| Recent Publications by New English Review Authors |
 |
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple |
 |
Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq |
 |
Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky |
 |
Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple |
 |
Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq |
 |
Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple |
 |
What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq |
 |
Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple |
 |
The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq |
 |
Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq |
 |
Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky |
 |
Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq |
|
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Pfwoar! Look at the subjunctive on that!
 Responding to my musings on the subjunctive, regular reader Reactionry - that's three Rs, but only two elbows - has pointed out a short note by erstwhile NER writer John Derbyshire:
I have two friends, happily married to each other, conservative intellectuals, who met in a library. "We just got chatting one day," she told me. "And the thing that caught my attention was, he used a subjunctive."
I wonder how the conversation went:
"Nice arse."
"Would it were."
Still, it's impressive, and better than liking a man for the size of his wallet. Derbyshire likes the subjunctive.
I record this by way of assisting any of our conservative student readers who would like to find a soul mate. There is no more distinctive marker of the conservative sensibility than accurate use of the subjunctive mood in speech. Outside we few, we happy few conservative intellectuals, use of the subjunctive in spoken speech has pretty much died out. (Would it were otherwise!) But at least we have this tiny verbal marker with which to identify each other, like a Masonic handshake.
If for no other reason, the spoken subjunctive should be cherished because it has survived so long in the teeth of massive popular indifference, and in spite of numerous reports of its demise, going back at least as far as 1856, when the following thing was written:
Our students are taught in school the subjunctive form: if thou have, if he come, etc, and some of them continue in after life to write in that manner, but in the course of more than forty years I have not known three men who have ventured to use that form of the verb in conversation.
— Quoted in Jespersen's Modern English Grammar, Vol. VII, 18.2
I urge all conservatives to work at keeping the subjunctive alive. After all, as Kipling did not quite say: "What stands if the subjunctive fall? Who dies if the subjunctive live?"
Had he confused the pluperfect subjunctive with the conditional perfect, she might never have married him.
By the way, are there any men out there who can see why "may" could not replace "might" in my last sentence? You could be my soul mate (threat or promise?) but not if your participles are hanging. Posted on 3:52 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
21 Feb 2008
Paul Blaskowicz
"Outside we few, we happy few [...].
Oops.
.You could be my soul mate (threat or promise?) but not if your participles are hanging.
Eh... not today, thanks. I think you could be a bit of a Lorena Bobbit If one were to hesitate too long between may and might
An additional tag to "See you later" in the building trade in the north of England is sometimes: And don't let your dingles dangle in the dust.
21 Feb 2008
 Mary Jackson
An additional tag to "See you later" in the building trade in the north of England is sometimes: And don't let your dingles dangle in the dust.
In the computer trade, this is modified to: "Don't let your dongle dangle in the Dell." 21 Feb 2008
Oliver P Camford
I feel sure that if you and I were to meet then I would disagree with you about the various usages of the modal verbs and modal auxiliaries. Just two hundred years ago it would have been correct in polite society - the upper ten thousand - to use 'may' where you insist upon 'might' today. In many parts of our country such usage is still correct amongst all classes of people whilst in yet other parts - parts from whence you hail - such usage is obviously wrong. There is not and, much more importantly, there never has been such a thing as correct modal usage. For every authority which you could produce to bolster your opinion on the subject I could produce a contrary one.
In general, I agree with many of your points concerning English usage and I, presumably as you do, deprecate many modern trends which I see as leading to the loss of the ability to precisely express oneself. I stand in awe, however, of a language - English - which can adapt so rapidly to the needs of its users; just think of the new verb 'to text'. Awesome!
On the use of modal verbs, however, I must differ. Would that it were otherwise.
Oliver. 22 Feb 2008
reactionry
Going Wee-Wee On Your But Temporary* Victory
Or: Going Overboard With "The Man In The Boat"
As usual, a piece by Paul is very funny and catches something which the rest of us ("rest of we" doesn't "sound correct") missed. In it, Paul obviously does not misremember us few, us happy few band of brothers. In Derb and Will's "it" [I hope that I'm using the clitic correctly, as might have been expected of the man who 'dissed the Leading Seaman in the boat in the waters off Iran] , 'we' is the object. Yes, 'we' is, 'we' is! And would that Porgy say to Bess, "Bess, when I say 'you,' I mean you," and then turn to another and say, " 'You' is my woman now; 'you' is, 'you' is!"! There's nobody here but we we's; which sounds sounds worse than "Nobody here but us chickens", but better than "Nobody is here but we Chechens, we happy few bands of Jihadists." We hate is when the French say, "Would that we had [have? It's obvious that I've gotten over my head] said, 'I go 'oui-oui' on your St. Crispin and weel chase you English peegs all ze way home!"
-We Happy Few
(I'd be surprised if there weren't errors in the above, and in this sentence, but cut 'em and me some slack; I'm nearly brain dead, and they're just dead.[actually, they've been dead quite awhile])
*See Agincourt 22 Feb 2008
Oliver P Camford
My Dear Reactionry [sic],
The C.R.A.P. (Campaign for the Return of the Abacus and Pen) issued the following statement at 09:30hrs.GMT this morning:
"Us were on the ground, right at the Crecy in fact, and bat in hand, when the perfidious French insulted we by putting in a mere Constable to bowl we out (as them thought). They Poitiered about in front of we for some time in ineffectual fashion (French, dontcher know, can't resist fashion - see Paris in the springtime, Troy, Troy amusant). Us got the better of they damned frogs in the vale twixt Agincourt and Tramecourt - all it took were two fingers of good English spirit in the bottom of a darkly glass and some cussing by ye langue beau men with many strings attached. Aye, he were St. Crispin's day but "cobblers" my saying is to that for us tanned and leathered 'em good, laced 'em through with well fletched darts. That day us took off the gloves and leathered all of him, and hard work ourselves weaved upon they.
Wert yourself abed that ye know this not? Ourselves were ahorse - and damned fine cataphracts us were. No waters fell and weer sight was sure. Victory, by Nelson's eye, belonged that day to we.
Aye, and ever since the Frogmen needs the likes of we when ere they must defend them's land - against the trenchant, firstly, and then the Vichyssoise. Yes, lad, them have souped upon gall ever since that St. Crispin's day.
So, that is what us pronounse."
I give you that statement by C.R.A.P. as a proud founder member - and that's not bullshit - and a lover of Gaul, for all its weaknesses.
Oliver. 26 Feb 2008
reactionry
Slangs & Arrows
My Dear 'Ver:
(may or might I aver that I call you?)
Thank you for your epistle which gave me a sense of my own failing (many typos in my post above), like an arrow-shower, sent out of sight, somewhere becoming bird shite from an Oxfordshire bower (see nasty blackbird mastier) falling like rain on a white Whitsun wedding dress. In spite of that, I think that I did get the beau gist of it. I still haven't figured out Hugh's "Paris and his-and-her's (see domestic, not hotel, towels) Hilton" and am the sort amusant by the line from Brad Pitt's Troy regarding Helen who "Left with the Trojans [emphasis for brand name added]."
My own shots wide of the mark have included CRAP about Le Pen and whether he's mightier than the Sword of Allah, and this by "Henry Wadsworth Longbow":
About Agincourt
I shot an arrow into the air,
It struck the heart of Savoir Faire.
C' est la Guerre.
I'm still a tad confused by "clobbers" apart from "It's clobberin' time!" as in a line from Butley about going "oop Leeds" (apologies, I think, to EW's husband) to yell "Clobber bustards!". Oops, would that it were "cobblers" so that my foot were not in my mouth. However, like Nixon of Dick, I'm now tanned and well rested, so your remark about the cobblers of Agincourt had me in as many stitches as when reading George A. Strong's
| When he killed the Mudjokivis, |
| Of the skin he made him mittens, |
| Made them with the fur side inside, |
| Made them with the skin side outside, |
| He, to get the warm side inside, |
| Put the inside skin side outside; |
| He, to get the cold side outside, |
| Put the warm side fur side inside. |
| That's why he put fur side inside, |
| Why he put the skin side outside, |
|
Why he turned them inside outside.
(hat tip The Brand-X Anthology Of Poetry by William Zaranka, Editor)
Like the staff of NER, I, too, wish the Frogs well (especially now that they're led by a man who is no stranger (in fact, he's downright cozy) to the pleasure of the flesh, Sarkozy), even if I'm ambivalent about our efforts to pull their chestnuts (ours, of course, are nearly extinct) out of the fire with respect to the Tonkinese of their lost Emperies.
At least I didn't have to Google the remark about Nelson's "Aye" ("Ay-yai-yai! My eye!") put to the spyglass darkly, and please consider it returned bottled in bond or casked in rum*.
*Rum -Leaving Lord Nelson and turning to the Duke of Wellington who had a [groan] beef with Boney, and who did not say, "It has been a damned nice thing - the nearest rum thing you ever saw in your life.." but did say, "We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France." -hey, I didn't say that; in spite of all my faults.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Posts at The Iconoclast
Search The Iconoclast
The Iconoclast Posts by Author
The Iconoclast Archives
RSS Site Feed
|
|
