Stephanie was here. I wish Stephanie were here. Tim picks up the dry cleaning. It’s imperative that Tim pick up the dry cleaning. You are on time. It’s crucial you be on time. Have you ever noticed ...

READING a story on the fate of European newspapers, your columnist was drowning in bad news—newsrooms decimated, advertisers fleeing—but then a strange sentence appeared: Even Rupert Murdoch, who ...

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 ...

AFTER our rigorous three-part review of the subjunctive, this form of the English language should no longer hold any terrors for us. But even with a good grasp of the subjunctive, we must remain ...

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.