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69
Far be it from me to argue with you!
Far be it from me to talk back!
- Чтобы я стал спорить!
- Чтобы я грубил!
Forms with may + infinitive, unlike modern forms with the same verb, retain the old word order:
May success attend you! May you be happy! May he win!
The subjunctive mood forms with had better, had best, would rather, would sooner are used in sentences
denoting wish, admonition, preference, advice. Very often they are used in a contracted form: You’d better go
at once. You had best take note of my direction if you wish to make sure of it.
Formulaic expressions with concessive meaning are used in complex sentences as concessive clauses:
Happen what may,
Come what will,
Come what may,
Cost what it may,
we shall not yield.
The formulaic expression as it were (так сказать) is used as parenthesis, emphasizing that the content of the
sentence is highly figurative or non-real:
... there is, as it were, a transparent barrier between myself and strong emotion.
He is my best friend, my second self, as it were.
Table III
The subjunctive mood forms
Types of Sentences
Synthetic Forms
Analytical Forms
Non-Factual
Tense Forms
Simple sentence
Ideas be hanged!
If only that were true!
May it come true!
I should like to see this film.
If I only knew!
Complex sentence with a
subject clause
It is required that all be
present.
It is important that all should
come.
It is likely he may come.
It is time the boy came.
Complex sentence with a
predicative clause
He looks as if he were
surprised.
It looks as if the weather may
change.
The order is that we should
move.
It seems as if everybody
knew.
It looks as if he had known
it long ago.
Complex sentence with an
appositive clause
The order that we should move
surprised us.
Complex sentence with an
object clause
I wish he were here.
He ordered that we should
come.
We feared lest he should find it
out.
I wish he would come.
I wish I knew it.
I wish I had never met him.
Complex sentence
The stranger looked
He glanced at me as if he
with an adverbial
at me as if he were
knew.
clause of comparison
surprised.
The girl spoke as if she
had learned it all by
heart.
Complex sentence with
It is true whether it be
Tired as he might be, he
an adverbial concessive
convincing or not.
continued his way.
clause
Though he might be tired, he
his way.
He will not manage it
however hard he should try.
Whatever faults the book may
have, it is interesting enough.
He would not have come
even if we had warned
him.