Past Subjunctive

[Baker, John]

In a post on Language Log yesterday, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4049, Geoff Pullum says that an article title, "The Things I Wish I Were Told When I Was Diagnosed With Cancer," is simply not well-formed English, because English has no past subjunctive.  Is there really a consensus that the title is simply a botch and is disallowed by English grammar?  I confess that it really doesn't sound that bad to me, but perhaps that is only an acknowledgment of my own ignorance.


John Baker

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