Ask the English Teacher

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You may have noticed a new link at the top of the right-hand column. It's a modest effort to promote The Tyee, a very good online journal published here in Vancouver.

Full disclosure: I've been writing for The Tyee since 2003, and I take some pride in being a contributor. You may not agree with its point of view on all topics (I certainly don't), but you'll find it offers some of the very best online writing anywhere.

If you can add to its readership by becoming a free weekly subscriber to its newsletter, I'd take it as your vote of support for what I'm doing here.

About the Subjunctive

A reader asks:
Does the subjunctive change in different tenses?

Or which of these are wrong/right:

Maria talks about it as if it were an alien / Maria talks about it as if it is an alien

Maria talked about it as if it were an alien <-- this is 'normal' were subjunctive usage?

If there is a tense set far back in the past, it seems that the verb should follow on:

Maria used to talk about it as if it were an alien / Maria used to talk about it as if it had been an alien.

Am I muddling the 'were' of the past tense and the 'were' of the subjunctive?

The subjunctive is a tough subject for native English speakers because it's a fairly uncommon usage. We should use it when we're discussing something that isn't factually true:
If I were you, I'd apply for the scholarship.
If we were in Mexico, we could go to Cancún.

I'm not you, and we're not in Mexico, so I have to use the subjunctive. But that "were" sounds a lot like the past tense, so it's a bit confusing.

We can also use the subjunctive with other odd verbs:
I move that the minutes be accepted as read.
Be it resolved, that this house support the prime minister's decision.

The minutes haven't been accepted yet, so we say "be accepted" instead of "are accepted." As soon as we get a vote, the chair can say, "The minutes are accepted as read." And once the house has passed the motion, the Speaker can say: "It is resolved that this house supports the prime minister's decision."

So in the sentences provided by my reader, we should say: "Maria talks about it as if it were an alien." We don't know of any aliens yet, so we have to use the subjunctive. The same is true even if Maria talked about it back in 1989: "Maria used to talk about it as if it were alien."

It's easy to confuse verb tenses with the subjunctive. That's one reason why fewer and fewer English speakers use it.

Try and, or Try to?

Nick writes:
Here's one that's bothered me for a while. Perhaps you can shed some light on it.
When is it appropriate to use "try and" and when "try to," as in "I'm going to try and walk the dog today" or "I'm going to try to walk the dog today"? Is "try and" ever correct?

"Try and" is a very widespread usage. Still, it's not logical.

"Try to" means "attempt to": I will try to climb Mount Everest. She will try to get her dream job.

Yet many of us say "try and," which makes no sense. I won't "try" and then "climb Mount Everest." She won't "try" and then "get her dream job."

You could use "try and" when you're really talking about two different actions:
If you try and fail, try again.
I will try and let you know if I succeed.

"Went missing" again

One of the surprises of running this blog has been the passion aroused by the expression "went missing," as in "A suburban housewife went missing Tuesday morning." Many readers have expressed their dislike of the term, which I confess doesn't bother me at all.

This may be because it's a very common term here in Canada and in Britain, and I hear it all the time on CBC radio and TV. It's newer in the US, I guess, and it clearly grates on many Americans.

Well, I just did an advanced Google search on "went missing"—and found to my amazement that this site was #1 out of 1,160,000 hits! I dug around and couldn't find a reliable source. My reliable Funk & Wagnalls Canadian College Dictionary doesn't list it, so I can't even claim it's OK because it's in the dictionary.

If anyone can give us the origins of the expression, I'd be grateful. And I'm sorry "went missing" bothers so many of you; up here, it seems perfectly natural.

Ms or Ms.?

Virginia asks:
Since the new title "Ms" is not actually an abbreviation of anything, it seems it should not be followed by a period. I am in the midst of an argument between two bosses who want to use two different styles for "Ms." Which is correct?

This is a good example of how crazy our punctuation is.

Yes, "Ms" is not an abbreviation of anything. "Mrs." is an abbreviation of "Mistress," just as "Mr." is an abbreviation of "Mister" (from Latin magister, master).

In the 1960s, many American women disliked being identified as single or married by "Miss" or "Mrs." So they used a dialect form of "Mrs." In some US English dialects, "Mrs." is pronounced "Mizz."

This new term was written "Ms," because it's not an abbreviation. But some people decided to write "Ms." to make it consistent with "Mr." and "Mrs."

Both usages are acceptable in North America. But here is where it gets crazy: In Britain, many abbreviations don't take periods. They write "Mr" and "Mrs" and "Dr"...and I guess they write "Ms" also.

So the best advice I can offer is to use "Ms" or "Ms."—but use it consistently.