If you don’t like off-color jokes, skip down to the next
paragraph. But there is an old joke that has been floating
around Boston for at least a half century about a woman who
grabs a cab at the airport and asks to go to downtown Boston. On
the way she effusively talks about all the things she wants to
do and see on her first trip to that city. Halfway into the
city, the driver asks her where she would like to be dropped
off. “Anywhere I can get scrod!” she exclaims with glee,
thinking of the popular New England fish. “Wow,” replied the
driver, obviously not a fish-eater, “That’s the first time I’ve
ever heard the subjunctive pluperfect of that verb.” I still
hear people of my generation say things like, “If Harry were
more careful,” and “Were mom to hear what you just said . . . .”
Most speakers still seem to still prefer, “If I were you,” but
that is probably a crystallized idiom now. “If I was you” does
occur, though, so Somerset Maugham was probably right when he
said, “The subjunctive mood is in its deat