Wish I Was
- Thread starter blixanz
- Start date
The subjunctive case tripped you up. 
It's I wish I were, and here's a link to it:
http://sukenmac.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/mac/wish/wish.sea.hqx
It's I wish I were, and here's a link to it:
http://sukenmac.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/mac/wish/wish.sea.hqx
Subjunctive case is fine in English English, although mood is more common. I would have thought it would be the same in Australian English?Er ... mood? Nouns come by the case. Verbs only in tens. :
de
Indeed -- thanks, equill, for repairing a deficiency (alas, but one of an infinite number) in my education. My English (er, American) teachers consistently referred to this as the subjunctive case, so I never thought twice about whether it was correct. I had enough of a challenge keeping the dysfunctional nominative case distinct from the adjoint retrophilic.Er ... mood? Nouns come by the case. Verbs only in tens. :
de
Hang not thine head in shame, tomlee59. I discovered an additional case for Latin nouns—a 'locative' case that could be taken as a special variant of the ablative case that we all know and love—only yesterday. Since I began the study of Latin some 58 years ago, that has to be quite a lead time, or 'dark phase' if one is into virology, no?
By the way, it could be thought that topping everyone else with a claim to an infinite number of deficiencies reveals a hubris that will almost inevitably be rewarded with nemesis ...
de
By the way, it could be thought that topping everyone else with a claim to an infinite number of deficiencies reveals a hubris that will almost inevitably be rewarded with nemesis ...
de
My Latin teacher (Oxon educated, him not me) ;-)
New generations have been betrayed these 50 years past by the pedagogical ideologues who considered that English could be osmosed subliminally. English has therefore been barely—if at all—taught, despite that even the most subliterate opponent of the notions of vocabulary and syntax will believe that the computer 'languages' modelled after human language necessitate absolute rigidity in such properties.
Perhaps your mentor was tacitly recognizing that English is now in an analogous state to that of Latin when the 'Romance' languages derived from it began to arise, and therefore less dependent on formal classifications. It is already quite apparent that there are a dozen-or-more forms of English extant, even excluding such unfortunate current manifestations as Chinglish and such obscenities as Leet.
Or, while intending no offence, could it be believed that it was the receiver rather than the transmitter that was misaligned during that quoted broadcast?
de
I have never, ever heard of case meaning mood before before and it doesn't really make sense. Nounal cases and verbal moods are two different things, hopefully that much is obvious.
I have, however, heard people corrected for mistaking case and mood - although one could be forgiven for making that mistake in Classic Arabic, where the two look exactly alike, inspite of their different purposes. (ًClassical Arabic, along with Modern Persian is my personal field of philological studies - the terminalogy used for both is the Latin one, though.)
Maybe it was a slip of the tongue on your professor's part?
I have, however, heard people corrected for mistaking case and mood - although one could be forgiven for making that mistake in Classic Arabic, where the two look exactly alike, inspite of their different purposes. (ًClassical Arabic, along with Modern Persian is my personal field of philological studies - the terminalogy used for both is the Latin one, though.)
Maybe it was a slip of the tongue on your professor's part?
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The problem certainly can lie with both the transmitter and receiver. In the States, the teaching of English is particularly poor, I think. I never heard of "subjunctive mood" until equill's post. I paid close attention in all of my language classes (English not being spoken at home, I worked doubly hard to learn it), too.
Now that I'm in the mood, I'll have to go back to Latin and learn about locative, vocative and other cases I never knew about (such as the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative) ...
Now that I'm in the mood, I'll have to go back to Latin and learn about locative, vocative and other cases I never knew about (such as the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative) ...
