tives rightly is dying with the subjunctive, so that even the still surviving were is often used where it is completely wrong. So
It would be advisable to wait for fuller details before making any attempt to appraise the significance of the raid from the military point of view, if, indeed, the whole expedition were not planned with an eye to effect.—Times.
Here the last clause means though perhaps it was only planned with an eye to effect (and therefore has no military significance). But if followed by were not necessarily means that it certainly is. The mistake here results in making the clause look as if it were the protasis to It would be advisable, with which it has in fact nothing whatever to do; it is a note on the words military significance. Write was for were.
...and who, taking my offered hand, bade me 'Good morning'—nightfall though it were.—Times.
The sentence describes a meeting with a person who knew hardly any English; he said good morning, though it was nightfall. A single example may be added of the intrusion of were for was in a sentence that is not conditional.
Dr. Chalmers was a believer in an Establishment as he conceived an Establishment should be. Whether such an Establishment were possible or not it is not for me now to discuss.—Lord Rosebery.
Were, however, is often right and almost necessary: other subjunctives are never necessary, often dangerous, and in most writers unpleasantly formal. The tiro had much better eschew them.
'Doubt that' and 'doubt whether'
Instances will be found in Part II of verbs constructed with wrong prepositions or conjunctions. Most mistakes of this kind are self-evident; but the verb 'doubt', which is constructed with 'that' or 'whether' according to the circumstances under which the doubt is expressed, requires special notice. The broad distinction is between the positive, 'I doubt whether (that)' and the negative, 'I do not doubt that (whether)';
