In The Mood for Subjunctives?

A subjunctive is a verb form.

It  can be used in the following cases:

To talk about imaginary, as against actual situations

• If only I were as happy as that dog
• If only people were as happy as they seem

To indicate when something is required to be done

• He recommended that I be there at the office half an hour early
• It is important that he face the trouble head on

It is distinguishable from the other verb forms using the following indicators:

1. The use of be and were as against am, is, are, was (ref. examples)
2. The lack of an s at the end of the verb when talking about a person in singular form, in present tense, and in the third person speech (ref. second example of the second case)

Simply put, you're using the subjunctive verb form if you use "I were" as against "I was".

Got your head around that? Great! Because this gets more complex. 

See you in the next post!