Frustrations in Teaching - II

[dcseain]

Following up on this post, i have a poll on use of the subjunctive in Modern English. I've read all your comments on the last post, and am using them to compose the follow-up, and i belive, culminating post on this topic.

Oh, and i'd like to point out that not all of the following are valid, and some are only valid in limited contexts in some dialects, insofar as i am aware.

[Poll #1001250]

Comments

[meowse.livejournal.com]

I really want to know which dialect uses "he be" and "he do".

I'm also skeptical that "He be at the bar" is grammatical in a dialect where "I doubt she talk funny" is not. I would challenge the person who made that choice to give us the grammatically correct version of "I doubt she talk funny."

[tovahs.livejournal.com]

If I was still in New Orleans, "he be" would be correct.

"How's your moma and them"
"I need to go make grosery"

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Modulo the lower-case "i" in choice #10. ;-)

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

By now, i'd've thought you'd've noticed that i mostly don't capitalize the pronoun I. Though for consistency's sake, that should be an I not an i in choice 10.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I had missed it, actually, because you still capitalize it at the beginning of a sentence. Any particular reason for the spelling?

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

It's a silly holdover from the days when we capitalized nouns/pronouns, as in modern German.

[dpolicar]

"If I were to do it, it would be a disaster." is correct in my English, but "If i were to do it, it would be a disaster." is not.

[meowse.livejournal.com]

Heh--I read that as a typo, not as a grammatical difference. Probably because it's got nothing (so far as I know) to do with the subjunctive mood.

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Assuming that was just a typo, I still wouldn't have picked it. I only found one correct response up there.


I'm just picky.

[meowse.livejournal.com]

Hmmm? What's wrong with them?

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

My usage would be "If I was do it...". I'm probably wrong.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

That is what i expected, based on where you learned to speak. I will address that in one of the follow-up posts.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Another vote for "i" ain't right, but I done called it right anyway cuz you were asking about the sentence not the capitalization. Also, I can never recollect which it's is which, but the sentece is just fine.

They All Sound Fine, Depending on Who I'm Playing

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

Really. Shoot me, but I'm linguistically flexible about most things. I sound like whom I'm listening to. People in my home town thought I wasn't from there because I didn't like the way they sounded. I made up my own accent listening to NPR.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Er ... I think I may have more than one dialect. A couple of those that I marked as not-correct in 'my' dialect, I'm quite accustomed to hearing from strangers in my area. A few that I marked correct, I would expect to hear at RenFest or SCA/Markland events, or when someone were trying to evoke a relevant mood or be tryin' ta sound like a pyrate.

Beyond that, what feels natural to me is probably an amalgam of central-Maryland suburban, central-Marylamd urban, academic, Shakespeare/KJV-ish, and a strange mistranslated-Middle-English-oid; shifting with context, audience, and desired effect.

Then agin', mah accent changes too, tho' less off'n than it usedta. (And I learned the habit of using 'ain't' tight here in Maryland.)