Some recurrent misuses of the English subjunctive - III

In last week’s column, we made a distinction between the subjunctive mood and the indicative and imperative moods. The subjunctive denotes acts or states that are contingent on possible outcomes of the speaker’s wish, desire, or doubt, while the indicative denotes acts and states in real-world situations and the imperative expresses direct commands or requests.

We have already taken up two deviant behaviors of verbs in the subjunctive mood. First, verbs in the subjunctive third-person singular drop the expected “-s” (or “-es”) at their tail end and take their base form instead, as “learn” does in this sentence: “It is essential that he learn to take criticism gracefully.” And second, the verb “be” in subjunctive “that”-clauses doesn’t change form at all no matter what person or number is taken by its subject: “The president ordered that I be here tonight.” “The president ordered that you be here tonight.” “The president ordered that they be here tonight.”