unusual subjunctive

[James Smith]

Maybe it's simply ellipsis: (should) stick.

James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.


--- On Wed, 5/14/08, James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:

> From: James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject: unusual subjunctive
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 7:43 PM
> From
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14rauschenberg.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1210770462-uIm4TmfQsDc8x4FbyKakMQ
> :
>
> A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage
> performer, set designer and, in later years, even a
> composer, Mr.
> Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist
> stick to one
> medium or style.
>
> ---
>
> I could go with "suggestion that..." or something
> similarly deontic,
> but "idea that..." with a subjunctive (rather
> than "should" or "ought
> to", for instance) seems to me like an application of
> the subjunctive
> by someone who doesn't really quite have a natural feel
> for it. Or is
> this more common than I think?
>
> James Harbeck.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> http://www.americandialect.org

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