> Latin: amo, amabo, amabam, amavi
>
> English: I love, I will love, I was loving, I have loved
We used to have a lot of inflections like Latin, just an eyeblink ago -- eleventh century, say. But thanks to our slovenly habits we have lost most. There's one precious remnant in the usual verb paradigm:
I see You see He sees
We see Y'all see They see
Spot the exception!
Just yesterday it would have been
I see Thou seest He seeth
... and so on.
The old and now vanishing subjunctive marked itself, drolly enough, by the absence of this one distinguishing mark -- a kind of double absence:
'If she see, fucked be we.'
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com