edguerin -> RE: Pity the poor subjunctive (Dec. 29 2013 16:05:27)
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I believe this decline is noticeable in all living - and thus evolving and changing - languages (and, presumably, past generations complained, just as we do now). Years ago, when still speaking my mother-tongue (English) on a day to day basis, I loved "Fowler's Modern English Usage". Alas, in the 2nd edition from 1968 the subjunctive is already considered "no longer alive". Another deplorable development can be seen in the German language, that not only has "adopted" numerous (pseudo-)English expressions, using them in a sense difficult or nigh impossible for English native speakers to understand (e.g. "Handy" for "mobile phone", "Aircondition" for "air conditioning", "Life-Performance" for "Live performance" ...). I think the present paucity of expression isn't just due to the internet; dubbing from English has definitely changed colloquial German, as in the phrase "lass uns treffen" which is a word for word translation of "let's meet".
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