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He walks as if the frost that envelops the city were of no concern to him.

He walks as if the frost that envelops the city is of no concern to him.

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but the first sentence above is not necessarily the grammatically correct one. Its use of a subjunctive verb, though it might sound oh so proper to your ear, might not be the best choice in context. The highfalutin’ tone of a subjunctive verb often misleads writers into thinking, “It sounds highbrow, so it must be correct.” It’s one of the most misunderstood and most often mangled bits of grammar in all writing. So here’s the real scoop.

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, the subjunctive tenses (past and present) are used to connote uncertainly or impossibility. It might help to consider the word representing the opposite of subjunctive: “indicative.” In the sentences above, let’s say the surrounding text indicates (there’s that word again) that the man is, in fact, not all that troubled by the wind chill. He’s got other things on his mind. In that case, when the verb states something that is actually the case or is highly probable, the subjunctive is not the best bet.

After all, the present indicative tense is a stronger verb: if you want your readers to believe that the man doesn’t care about the cold, use the second sentence. Strong verbs make for more active, insistent writing. Now look at this sentence:

Though the cold makes every breath an effort, the man walks as if the frost that envelops the city were of no concern to him.

In this case, the first clause makes clear that the cold is indeed a concern to the man. The writer perhaps wants to indicate that the man is hiding that fact in his casual stride. The subjunctive “were” is appropriate here because it refers to a state of being or an action that is not a fact or a probability. A more extreme example: “If I were a lion, I would be king of the jungle.” Clearly, “If I am a lion” is not good writing, unless your novel concerns a serious cross-species identity crisis.

The action already having happened, the past subjunctive is a little more straightforward. When writing about something fantastical or that simply didn’t take place, “If [subject] had…” is the usual construction. That is, “If Bill had punched that guy, he’d still be unconscious.” Well, Bill didn’t. Contrast “If Bill punched that guy, he won’t be getting up anytime soon.” Now, it’s not a “what if…” situation; Bill may very well have punched that guy. No subjunctive.

Subjunctive isn’t misused by writers only because it sounds fancy; the “rules” surrounding it can be genuinely vague, and the “correct” form isn’t always obvious—but keep this in mind: most fiction is written in the past tense. So that “were,” though commonly used, is often incorrect. Instead of writing “If he were a dragon, he would have breathed fire,” go with “If he had been a dragon, he would have breathed fire.” (Too clunky? How about “If he’d been a dragon”?)

When uncertain cases arise in your writing, go with the form that sounds most natural when read aloud. Or decide, as in the example at the top, whether you want to emphasize the uncertainty of a situation or its probability. But remember that the presence of the word “if” doesn’t automatically call for the subjunctive. If what you’re writing about takes place in the future, the subjunctive is never called for, since, hey, there’s always a chance: “If I win the lottery, I’ll buy… ”

The moral: if I were you, I’d be careful of using that pesky “were” when it really “is.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 4:49 am and is filed under Writing/Editing Tips: Nuts and Bolts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.