Why subjunctive?

[Jocelyn Limpert]

"between you and I"?  not "me"?

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Why subjunctive?
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> At 1:25 PM +0000 8/12/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
> >Why not?
>
> Well, the prescriptive rule, such as it is, is that subjunctive would
> be used in this context just in case the speaker/writer was
> presupposing a counterfactual situation in the antecedent, in this
> case that there is never a place in need of more comedy and less
> comity, and that's clearly not presupposed. Presumably the author
> believes that there are many such places, of which the Senate is the
> foremost.  But just between you and I, the spread of subjunctive to
> non-counterfactual if-clauses is another stalking horse of
> hypercorrection that's long since left the barn.
>
> LH
>
>
> >------Original Message------
> >From: Bill Palmer
> >Sender: ADS-L
> >To: ADS-L
> >ReplyTo: ADS-L
> >Subject: [ADS-L] Why subjunctive?
> >Sent: Aug 12, 2010 5:45 AM
> >
> >The opening sentence of an opinion piece
> >in today's NYT:
> >
> >If ever there were a place in need of more comedy, and less comity,
> >it's the U.S. Senate.
> >
> >
> >Bill Palmer
> >
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