Re: Grammar gurus: I have a question

["Sandy Harris" <sandyinchina -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 3:05 AM, Guy K. Haas <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com> wrote:
> While there is plenty of room for rewriting, the question of grammar is
> answered here: http://www.ceafinney.com/subjunctive/excerpts.html

See also the FAQ for the alt.usage.english newsgroup. That's a pretty good
reference on all the usual usage debates.

Stuff relevant here is:
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxsubjun.html
http://alt-usage-english.org/subjunctive_supplement.html

I think there may be a dialect difference on this. I'm Canadian, and at
one point was working for a British organisation.  I was amazed when
a colleague said "Fred called. He suggested that you rang him back."

To me, that is no more grammatical than "I seen George yesterday."
It /must/ have "ring"! However, she was educated, working as an
Englsh teacher. I asked various Brit colleagues; quite a few found
"rang" acceptable there. After that, I listened for that difference
and found it moderately often. "I suggest that he is fired" where
I would have "be" for "is", and other such things.

-- 
Sandy Harris,
Quanzhou, Fujian, China
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