It is often bemoaned in Britain that English is going to pieces—and Americans are generally to blame. Whether you call it decline or not, the moaners are on to something: America has indeed produced ...

After a full-dress review of the subjunctive in the preceding chapters, this form of the English language should no longer hold any terrors for us. With a clearer understanding of its uses and ...

One of the most fascinating things about language is that we can use it so well, so expertly, without understanding how we do it. The following two sentences are perfect examples. If the burglar was ...

“If there were a Form 3, you would have already filled it out.” Reader Jessica had a question about a sentence like this. The speaker already knew about a Form 1 and a Form 2. The existence of Form 3, ...

Sometimes you might write about things that aren’t certain, or that you imagine might happen. This is called the subjunctive or the subjunctive mood. If I were in charge, I’d make bedtime later. It's ...

Sometimes, what might have been never stops mattering. By Jean Chen Ho I’ve always had an unstable relationship to time. Maybe that’s because in Chinese, my first language, verbs aren’t conjugated.