Past Subjunctive

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Me too. "The Things I Wish I Had Been Told When I Was Diagnosed With
Cancer" seems right.

If I read it right the Cambridge Grammar (Huddleston and Pullum) rejects
the term "past subjunctive" (which I have long disliked myself).

In the Cambridge book this thing is called "irrealis 'were'", I think,
and I suppose it subsumes an "irrealis 'had been'" ... although I
haven't read much of the book.

I don't know that I like this terminology either: I'm kind of used to
thinking of the "were" thing as some sort of subjunctive (although not
particularly a 'past' one).

-- Doug Wilson

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