The Dying Subjunctive

Taylor Swift, known for her self-written pop songs, knows how to demonstrate her lyrical expertise in her work, most notably on her albums folklore and evermore. Her astounding use of syntax and vocabulary shows her skill in crafting thoughtful lyrics that play with language conventions while still telling a story. Curious to see her songwriting process, I recently watched her Netflix documentary Miss Americana, in which she writes her song “The Man.” In one scene, she writes the chorus and sings “wondering if I’d get much further if I were a man…if I was a man? If I was a man!”(Miss Americana, 2020)

The grammar police in me instantly cringed at her final decision. Afterward, I noticed the complete misuse of the subjunctive in her other work, such as in “Both of Us” featuring rapper B.o.B where she sings, “I wish I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us” (B.o.B, Swift, 0:07) Then, I questioned how the same person who wrote songs as beautiful as those on her two sister albums could be the same one who confidently misuses the subjunctive. 

In her defense, the subjunctive mood is a complicated concept to grasp when learning other languages, especially in English. It indicates a hypothetical, wished, or alternate outcome. For example, Beyonce correctly uses the subjunctive in her song “If I Were a Boy,” changing the tense of “to be” to show that in an alternate universe where she is a man, she would treat her partner with more respect.

Between Swift’s misuse and Beyonce’s correct usage, they ultimately attempt to express the same sentiment of what a reality would look like if they were male. However, the subjunctive offers slight nuances that the indicative does not. While the subjunctive implies a hypothetical outcome, the indicative mood expresses fact. If the subjunctive and the indicative are “moods” or tenses that express particular sentiments, why do so many people mistakenly utilize the two? 

What does our consistent ignorance of the subjunctive tell us about how we see ourselves in the past and the future? 

When trying to reason why Swift might have made this mistake, surely it might have been a sonic choice, but maybe there is another layer to her lyrics. As she spent over fifteen years presenting as a woman in the music industry, she feels as though her experience with sexism cannot be undone or forgotten. Thus, she might use “was” to show that she does not want to sweep her experiences under the rug. Had she been a man in the public eye during those past fifteen years, she would have had a completely different career. Thus, she might have used “was” instead of “were” because “was” implies the past that she cannot change.

Although the misuse of the subjunctive might just signal that native English speakers are not properly taught the conventions of their language, it also might indicate a mood increasing amongst newer generations, like Swift, that certain circumstances are black and white, strictly set in stone without room for error.

For example, in a conversation with a close friend the other day, she said “I would not have children if I was a doctor.” After correcting her, she explained that “was” meant that becoming a doctor was an option in the past no longer available to her. Although I maintained that dramatically changing career paths is still hypothetically possible if she changed majors, enrolled in medical school, and then residency for four years, she held that it is too late and that possibility has expired. 

Is it too late? Can Taylor Swift undo years of misogyny and begin again in a world where the institution of sexism does not exist? Can my friend change career paths without worrying about the time commitment, financial worry, or the fear of falling behind all of her younger classmates? Hypothetically, no, but in our current reality, maybe my friend has a point that past decisions cannot change, and as a result, neither can our futures. 

The trend of a dying subjunctive mood in spoken English might be simple ignorance, but it could also be intentionally misused to convey the judgment of lived reality. For Swift, she recounts her lived experiences of the past and how they impacted the trajectory of her future. My friend might employ the indicative tense when she should actually use the subjunctive, but she might express a sentiment that society has drawn rigid lines that we cannot, as individuals, redraw. Of course, this does not suggest that people who do use the subjunctive correctly have an intense belief that they will be men or that they will be doctors, but that poor application of the subjunctive might intentionally express an alternate sentiment. Ultimately, misuse of grammatical conventions might have a hidden layer of meaning that illustrates how one sees the world. 

Citations 

Wilson, Lana, director. Miss Americana. Netflix, 2020, https://www.netflix.com/title/81028336.