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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sowbug who wrote (1048)	4/3/1998 12:02:00 PM
From: Paul Viapiano	Respond to of 4710

Sowbug, I'm now a Californian as well (15 years). Your "button" example brought back many memories. Another one I still use (and berated by my wife for) is "'member" instead of remember. And how about "owees" instead of always. You can take the boy out of.... I'm a much better writer than a speaker and always look to edit myself for clarity. I took a look at Elements of Style last night at the bookstore. I had a copy years ago but can't seem to find it now. I'm afraid that email and thread-messaging are done in such haste that not much care is put into grammar or spelling. The idea, of course, is fast, terse communication that gets to the essence of the point. Paul PS...I'm not old, don't wear my hair in a bun or use bifocals (although reading glasses are a relatively new item in my wardrobe.)

To: Sowbug who wrote (1048)	4/3/1998 2:12:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

Sowbug, I agree with you that the expression is not correct, but I don't think it's the wrong tense but the wrong mood. "I'd never do anything ever to hurt you, unless I have to." Here are my thoughts. The way it's expressed could be correct, if the present indicative "have" is implying a future action: "unless I have to hurt you sometime in the future." But that's probably a lame excuse for what is probably just the mistake of not using the subjunctive after the "would" clause. "I would never...., unless I had to." is the correct form, as you point out. "Had" here is the subjunctive. It just happens to have the same form as the past tense. For example, in somewhat archaic inversion style: Had I only the time, I would... But use of the subjunctive is moribund, and I guess we should get used to it. Jack

To: Sowbug who wrote (1048)	4/3/1998 2:44:00 PM
From: Achilles	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

>>"I'd never do anything ever to hurt you, unless I have to." It should be "unless I had to," right???<< Yes, correct, if the motive of the speaker/writer was to finish the statement as contrary-to-fact. There is a rhetorical figure called anacoluthon ('want of sequence') which we might want to consider: that is, abandoning a grammatical sequence in mid-stream for some rhetorical emphasis. Here the woman is almost saying "I would never hurt you (pause?), (but I will) if I have to'. The change in sequence, from contrary-to-fact, emphasizes the fact that the reason that she doesn't hurt you is that you have not given her a reason, yet!.