Over the past 12 years that I’ve been writing this column, I called attention every now and then to the recurrent misuse of the English subjunctive by some news reporters and editors and even by some academics. In the beginning, though, I’d let pass most of the faulty sentence constructions without comment on the presumption that they were just proofreading or typographical errors.
Such was my initial presumption when I came across this paraphrase in a news report of an academic official’s statement in 2012 about the Reproductive Health Bill (underscoring mine): “The university will also support the Church in its future actions should the bill is passed by Congress, Villarin said.” Of course, that sentence should be using “be” instead of “is” as linking verb because it is in the subjunctive mood: “The university will also support the Church in its future actions should the bill be passed by Congress, Villarin said.” But then, who wouldn’t think that a proofreader had only mistakenly replaced the correct “be” in the original manuscript with the wrong “is”?
Continue reading with one of these options:
Ad-free access
P 80 per month
(billed annually at P 960)
- Unlimited ad-free access to website articles
- Limited offer: Subscribe today and get digital edition access for free (accessible with up to 3 devices)