There Will Always Have Been An England . . .

[Martin Kaminer]

File under historical dialect, dialectical materialism, etc:

Sir Ronald Storrs (referring to speech patterns of early-20th-Century
British diplomats when speaking with local potentates they were trying
to influence in the Great Game):

                                      "We deprecated the imperative,
preferring instead the subjunctive or even, wistfully, the optative
mood".


                         -- _The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs_ Page
206 http://bit.ly/A46J1M

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org