Why subjunctive?

[Ronald Butters]

HELP! SOMETHING IS NOT COMPUTING HERE IN MY BRAIN. I don't understand how saying "If ever there WAS a place in need of more comedy, and less comity" would make the grammar in line with the meaning. I can't see the "if" clause as anything other than counterfactual. It still means the Senate has too little comedy and too much civility. So the problem, just between us wee grammarians, is that the order of abstract nouns is reversed. The TIMES writer means (maybe)  "If ever there WAS a place in need of more comity, and less comedy."

Or what?


>>>>> it's the U.S. Senate.
On Aug 12, 2010, at 11:15 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:

>> Given the mention of hypercorrection in that paragraph, I'm guessing LH was
>> employng irony.
>> 
>> Bill P
> 
> Um, yeah.  Context is everything, or at least something.
> 
> LH
> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jocelyn Limpert" <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 10:47 AM
>> Subject: Re: Why subjunctive?
>> 
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: Why subjunctive?
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>>> 
>>> "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?
>>>> 
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> 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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