@jayles - Yes, we don't use present subjunctive much in BrE, except when being very formal, and of course we have some pf the same aspects as we have with the past subjunctive. And that is that many forms of the subjunctive are exactly the same as the indicative. Let's change your example slightly:

'They recommend that the Governor of the Bank of England raise interest rates. - 3rd person singular - subjunctive is different from the indicative - raises

They recommend that you raise interest rates, Sir.' - 2nd person plural - subjunctive is exactly the same as the indicative

The number of occasions when the subjunctive is different from the indicative is tiny, and this is why I don't buy the clarity argument, and probably why its decline in use continues. In British English, the only difference between using the subjunctive or indicative is one of formality, and it might be argued, elegance.

As for what people need to know, in BrE it basically boils down to one thing: in present hypothetical conditionals, and with expressions lie 'I wish/If only', in formal English many people will expect you to use 'were' instead of 'was' in the 1st and 3rd persons of 'be'. It's much better to see it simply as an exception to the rule, as we do in EFL/ESL, than getting all worked up about the subjunctive, a word we hardly ever mention.

It's interesting that a few years ago, the Egyptian Tourist Board ran an advertising campaign with the slogan 'I wish I was in Egypt', with music from Aida. I don't remember any great outcry because they didn't use the subjunctive, which theoretically they 'should' have done, as it's a hypothetical statement. The truth is that because the subjunctive is exactly the same as the 'normal' (i.e. indicative) past in the vast majority of cases, people are tending to ignore the exception, and use normal past for that as well. Pretty logical, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5_T-KaWTfs

For those who really must have the subjunctive there's a good collection of examples put together by a subjunctive fan here - http://www.ceafinney.com/subjunctive/examples.html

@Brus - thank you for your kind remarks and the fact that, although our views are pretty well diametrically opposed, we manage to keep our discussions fairly civilised.

So, before you rush off to the pub, it is my understanding that what are now generally considered to be the shibboleths of the proscription of split infinitives and preposition stranding started off because, as these didn't happen in Latin, they shouldn't be allowed in English. Although probably some 95% of grammar is totally non-controversial, one area where many disagreements occur is that of pronouns, one of the few areas where we still have inflections, and some people try to compare the system in English, a largely non-inflected language to Latin, a highly inflected language. In fact where Latin has come in most useful for me is in trying to learn Polish, as Polish has a similar seven case system to Latin, with the different cases having more less the same uses as in Latin.

So, back to the subjunctive. I'm the same as you, I didn't learn it through English either, but through French and Spanish. But that's because it has such a marginal role in (at least British) English, whereas in Romance languages it is much more important - though that doesn't stop the French trying to avoid it - il faut faire qqc, rather than il faut que je fasse qqc etc.

But I repeat - how can there be ambiguity in a mere two persons of one verb, when there is none for the other four persons of the same verb and all other verbs. You give the example of 'If I were to have left the money' instead of 'If I left the money', but there are a couple of problems here - firstly 'If I were to have left the money' is not the subjunctive of 'If I left'. The past subjunctive of 'leave' is 'left', exactly the same as the indicative, just as it is for every verb except 'be'. All you are doing is making it more formal or tentative.

The only case where the past subjunctive is different from the past indicative is in the 1st and 3rd persons of 'be' - 'If I was/were' 'If he/she was/were' and variations of was/were.

The second problem is that apart form a few constructions such as 'I wish' and a few fixed expressions, this only occurs in hypothetical or counterfactual conditionals. And conditionals consist of two clauses. In your examples you only give half the story; it's the other half and the context that tells you whether we are using a real or counterfactual conditional:

'If I left money in a brown envelope when I was here earlier, I'd be grateful if you could tell me where it is' - is not really a true conditional; it means 'íf it's the case that', is in the indicative and it's about the past.

But:

'If I left money in a brown envelope on the table, would you then be more inclined to award us the contract' - now we have a hypothetical conditional (and a hidden subjunctive) about the present/future, with what we call the Unreal past. Using 'If I were to' doesn't make it any more subjunctive, simply more tentative.

The usual way of putting your second (past hypothetical) example would be with 'had' - 'If I had left money in a brown envelope' which is also a hidden subjunctive. Again the 'were to have' is not the subjunctive of 'had', simply more tentative.

Two more examples. The first in each pair is a standard hypothetical (with a hidden subjunctive), and the second just a more tentative version.

with present/future meaning
'If we offered you a greater discount, would you be prepared to double your offer?'
'If we were to offer you a greater discount, would you be prepared to offer us a greater discount?'

with past meaning
'If we had offered you a greater discount would you have doubled your order?'
'Were we to have offered you a greater discount, would you have doubled your order?'

All are in the subjunctive, but because in the first in each pair the subjunctive is exactly the same as the indicative, nobody notices. I'm afraid the 'were to' construction is a bit of a red herring here. The real question (as the questioner originally asked) is whether these two sentences are equally valid:

If she were here now, she'd give you a piece of her mind.
If she was here now, she'd give you a piece of her mind.

And whereas most traditional grammarians would say no, the answer most linguists and EFL books would give for normal spoken English is yes, with the proviso that you are better to use 'were' in more formal contexts. But that is not really for any linguistic reasons, but because certain people, like those traditional grammarians, will expect it. Compare that with the same sentence with 'they', where subjunctive and indicative are exactly the same:

If they were here now, they'd give you a piece of their mind(s).

If there's no room for confusion with this one, how on earth is there any room for confusion with the 'she' version.

The truth is that the Subjunctive has been losing its distinctive forms in English for at least the last 500 years, and what we have now are simply the final vestiges. In a largely non-inflected language, I personally see nothing fundamentally English about the subjunctive, and am quite happy to see it go, although I respect the views of those who don't. But it's a bit like 'whom', those who want to use it are free to do so, but they don't really have any linguistic grounds for criticising those of us who don't so much.

Hi Jim, off-topic discussions are often the best. As you say, I used 'importantly' to modify a whole clause rather than a verb, but that is exactly one of the functions of an adverb, which can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb or a whole clause.

In that example I was using it as a so-called sentence adverb, as in 'Luckily, it's stopped raining' or 'Unfortunately, I disagree with you'. In fact I would have said 'More important' was the less formal one because an adjective can only modify a noun, and where's the noun? I imagine 'More important' is really short for 'What is more important'.

As for your example with 'be', as it is being used as sentence adverb, the fact that the verb 'be' is involved makes no difference. What is important is that we use an adjective, not an adverb, to refer back to the subject. 'She sings beautifully' but 'Her voice is really beautiful'. In your example 'More importantly' isn't modifying 'issue', but the whole idea, so an adverb is called for.

[sentence adverb] used to emphasize a significant point:
'a non-drinking, non-smoking, and, importantly, non-political sportsman' - Oxford Online

'More importantly, can he be trusted?' - Oxford Advanced Learner's

used for emphasizing that something is important
'Importantly, these measures were accepted by all political parties.' - Macmillan Dictionary

'Most importantly, you must keep a record of everything you do.' - Longman Dictionary

There may be a convention in the States I don't know about, and Oxford Online also lists 'important' as a sentence adverb:

[sentence adverb]:the speech had passion and, more important, compassion

OK, I've now found this, from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, via the Free Dictionary:

'Usage Note: Some critics have objected to the use of the phrase more importantly in place of more important when one introduces an assertion, as in "More importantly, no one is ready to step into the vacuum left by the retiring senator". But both forms are widely used by reputable writers, and there is no obvious reason for preferring one or the other.'

And this from Random House via Dictionary.com:

Usage Note
'Both more important and more importantly occur at the beginning of a sentence in all varieties of standard English: "More important (or More importantly), her record as an administrator is unmatched". Today, more importantly is the more common, even though some object to its use on the grounds that more important is an elliptical form of “What is more important” and that the adverb importantly could not occur in such a construction. More importantly probably developed by analogy with other sentence-modifying adverbs, as curiously, fortunately, and regrettably.'

(And of course the much-maligned 'hopefully')

I'd never heard of this proscription before, so it may well be an American thing - and indeed the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of the English Language say that:

'American commentators tend to object to the adverb and recommend the adjective.Objections are made primarily on grammatical grounds. Many (say) ...that ""more importantly" modifies nothing in the sentence. But from the same point of view, neither does "More important. So a longer phrase "what is more important", is postulated and ellipsis adduced to explain the inconvenient absence of "what is"'.

They then give examples of both uses from established writers and finish off by saying:

"You can, then use either the adjective of the adverb; both are defensible grammatically and both are in respectable use. As Bryson says, "the choice of which to use must be entirely a matter of preference" '.

As I'm British I don't have to worry about all this, of course, and the adverb sounds much more natural to me. What's more, sentence adverbs are no longer as controversial as they were a few decades ago, and the idea that an adverb can modify a whole clause is absolutely standard in EFL/ESL and linguistics. This is from Oxford Online:

adverb - a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing manner, place, time, or degree (e.g. gently, here, now, very). Some adverbs, for example sentence adverbs, can also be used to modify whole sentences.

@Brus - I'm a little confused. In your first comment on the 21st, you said that as a nation we British think that grammar is 'daft' and that 'there is to be found in all too many places a seething resentment against education in general: grammar, incredibly, is thought to be elitist by the lefties', so I thought your main targets were left-leaning Guardianistas like me. But now you are complaining ' that folk grumble and tut about how no one is taught grammar any more', which sounds a lot more like Daily Mail readers to me.

You imply that learning Latin will cure all our grammatical ills. I have no problem with those who want to learning Latin; they say it improves your sense of logic, for example. But Latin is not English, and Latin grammar is not English grammar. That may seem obvious, but part of the problem with the 18th century prescriptivists is that some of them tried to force English into a Latin mould. I would also remind you that much of the success of the Scottish University system during the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment, and the more than average production of engineers and philosophers in Scotland at that time, was partly because Scottish universities had moved away from the mainly classical system that prevailed in England at the time.

People will learn grammar when it is presented in an engaging and interesting way, and based on real-life normal Standard English, as it largely is in EFL/ESL teaching. I remember what we had before the reforms, and it was deadly dull, and many thought it stultified any sort of creativity. But what people like Gove and (Latin teacher and self-appointed 'expert') Nevile Gwynne put forward as 'good grammar' is completely out of kilter with what those who teach English and those who study language (i.e. linguists) think (and with real-life normal Standard English). If you're a Telegraph reader I highly recommend the occasional forays into this arena by Tom Chivers (although I doubt you'll agree with him). As far as I'm concerned, his is one of the most sensible voices talking about grammar today.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100212186/do-you-see-whom-i-see/

And on the topic of education, just a reminder that when I was at school only about 10% of pupils went on to university, now the figure is more like 50%. From being something reserved for the privileged few, higher education really has opened up to the many. In 1960 there were 22,426 first degrees awarded in the UK. By 1990 that had risen to 77,189, and at the same time there was a tenfold increase in higher degrees awarded (figures from the House of Commons Library). To put it into perspective, population increase over the same period was about ten percent. The figures are far higher today, but the statistical system seems to have changed, so the 1990 figures give a fairer picture.

http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter06.html

A bit of clumsy editing as usual - an extra 'of' and a missing 'it'!

Hi Jim (?), from Providence (?) - I agree, technically, it just seems a little cold, as it were. But sorry, what do you mean the passive? There's no passive involved there. I simply used the verb 'be' - Look at your own sentence - 'Her reply was cold' which follows the same pattern - subject + be + adjective - Then change it to ''Damn, it's cold' exactly the same pattern - that's not passive.

Don't get me started on the passive. There is a myth in certain circles, especially but not exclusively in the States, that the passive is the sign of weak writing. Well, which sounds stronger to you - 'They gave me the sack' (active) or 'I was booted out' (passive). The passive should be treated the same as any other construction, and each case judged on its own merits.

It's ironic, but many of critics of the passive misidentify it, seeing where it isn't, and using it themselves, apparently without realising it. Look back at your last comment. In the very sentence where you say the passive weakens the example, you have used the passive twice. Now I know you were having a bit of fun with 'begging the question' but were those two passives a joke as well? In fact, they show just how useful the passive is.

http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-misidentifying-passive-and-passive.html

@Brus - the subjunctive has been disappearing from British English for a lot longer than just since the educational reforms of the late sixties. Fowler called it largely moribund in 1926, and Somerset Maugham announced in 1949 that, “The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible” .

We haven't used present subjunctive for a long time in BrE, except in very formal contexts, so what we are talking about is past subjunctive in hypothetical conditionals. Past subjunctive is identical to past indicative except in two persons of one verb. If we are not confused with the the other persons of 'be' and all persons of every other verb, the only function I can see subjunctive 'were' serving is to show off how grammatically well educated you are.

So now to grammar schools. In fact not all grammar schools closed in the 70s, as it depended on the political colour of the local government. Some became comprehensives, some continued alongside comprehensives and some still exist today, although many of the best have admittedly gone private, due to Labour's mistaken (in my view) policy of stopping funding grant-aided schools - not all grammar schools were directly funded by the state - when I was young, 40% of children in Edinburgh went to grant-aided schools, somewhere between state and private.

And frankly speaking, grammar schools were elitist, being intended for the top 25% of pupils. Yes, a few, such as Manchester Grammar School, had an excellent record at getting working-class kids into Oxford and Cambridge. The problem was not so much with the grammar schools, as with the other side of the coin: what happened if you weren't one of the lucky 25%, a decision that was made at the age of eleven or twelve. Because if you didn't pass the 11-plus exam, the alternative was the Secondary Modern school, basically a passport to nowhere. There were certainly mistakes made in the early 70s, but I can't imagine many want to go back to that sort of inequality of opportunities.

Yes, there are more children at private school than ever before, partly due to Mrs Thatcher's policy of financially aiding pupils to go to private school, and partly due to underfunding of state schools. But I'm afraid your figures for university places are wildly out, unless you believe the term university should be reserved for Oxbridge. In fact, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 88.9% of those entering university come from state schools, and even at Oxford and Cambridge, the figures are 57.5% and 63.3% respectively for students from state schools.

I learnt Latin at school and it has absolutely no effect on whether I use the subjunctive or not. As for politicians and others, it needs to be remembered that Britain is not like meritocratic (at least in theory) France, or the States. Too often elitism in Britain has been associated with privilege, with the class system. Thank God, that is now weakening, and the effects can be seen in language, which is moving to the middle. The language spoken by the upper classes is markedly less 'U' than it was when I was young, and as the working classes become more aspirational, their language is also apparently changing.

You may think that when Cameron or Miliband says 'If I was in such-and-such a situation, I would do so-and-so' they're dumbing down to appeal to a particular audience, but the truth is that the language of people of their background is also changing. I had a pretty similar sort of education, before the reforms, and I don't use subjunctive much either.

Still, current education minister Michael Gove would agree with you about the subjunctive, though few language professionals agree with him. Gove is the one who wrote a note to his department, in which he suggested the passive should be avoided. Not only did he misidentify the passive in his note (par for the course for passive critics), he introduced his letter with the sentence 'Thank you for your letter of the 17th asking me, on behalf of your colleagues, how I like letters to be drafted.', which of course contains a passive.

Hi providencejim, I don't think my problem is specific to 'simplistic', or is really about semantics; I think it goes for a lot of adjectives in predicative position. For example - 'He suggested a neat solution to the problem' sounds fine to me, but 'His solution to the problem was neat' sounds strange to me, it seems to be 'begging' for an intensifier of some sort.

Firstly (It's OK Grammarnut, that's standard in BrE), congratulations everyone on making this thread such a calm and civilised oasis. I would just like to follow up on something I wrote earlier. I find the following sentence very bare as it stands, and I wonder if it sounds natural and idiomatic to you without 'too' or 'over':

'His explanation was simplistic.'

It took you a hell of a long time to work out I was British; I thought 'maths' and my British spelling would have given that away a long time ago. I'll ignore your little dig at the end; I've got sort of used to expecting things like that.

I'm not sure where I said that I encourage my students to 'embrace informality'. Although it is true that Polish students sometimes do learn rather formal language and Polish itself can be a somewhat formal language. But I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. I'm not some weird radical island. I don't teach any differently from the rest of my colleagues, and in any case we mainly follow course books. So your argument is not simply with me, but with the whole of the ESL/EFL industry.

Of course I don't teach people to speak incorrectly, but I do teach them to speak appropriately. The problem with the traditionalist grammar approach is that it often only recognises formal forms as correct. For example I was using a grammar book today which had these two sentences, and the students had to say which was correct, or if both were correct, what was the difference?

'Claire is so arrogant - she always thinks she is better than I.'
'Claire is so arrogant - she always thinks she is better than me.'

In TEFL we recognise both those sentences as correct, the difference being one of formality. Some traditionalists, however, would only recognise the first as correct, even though very few people would actually utter such a sentence. The same would go for these pairs:

To whom should I give this book?
Who should I give this book to?

No, it is we who should thank you.
No, it is us who should thank you.

Who did that? - It was I.
Who did that? - It was me.

She doesn't like his smoking in the house.
She doesn't like him smoking in the house.

As to what elitists say or think, you're never going to satisfy them anyway; I'm much more concerned with what my students' normal business contacts think, and most modern business people use relatively informal language. And as Professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum has said -'informal is normal' - it is formal language that is the exception, and I'm afraid I simply don't accept your idea that only formal language is correct. What I'm interested in as a teacher is:

1) Is something grammatical - for example 'The dog me bit' is patently ungrammatical. You know that instinctively, but a low level foreign learner might not. That construction is perfectly possible in Polish for example, and is probably standard in German.

2) Is it Standard English? Many perfectly well-educated people in Northern England use 'were' for 3rd person singular, for example, but it's not Standard English, so we would mark it as wrong.

3) Is it suitable for the occasion and natural English? - 'Hi Mum, it is I' may be grammatically correct, but unless you're an upper-class toff, is totally unsuited to talking to your mum, and hardly any native speaker would say that.

I have a responsibility to my students to make sure they don't sound like idiots. You wouldn't go to a formal ball in Bermuda shorts, but neither would you go to the beach in a tux. It's the same with language - it's horses for courses.

Grammar, in my book, is simply the system we use to make words and put them together so we can communicate. People were speaking grammatically correct English for about eight hundred years before the first grammar books appeared, and native-speaker children form grammatically perfect sentences long before they ever have a grammar lesson. The more you read about the history of grammar, the more you discover that many of what are now taken to be golden rules are often relatively new, and equally often based on one person's whim.

Grammatically 'correct' as I understand it is what most educated speakers of Standard English accept as OK, or as linguists put it, is 'well formed', not the spoutings of self-appointed 'experts' or language mavens.