argued that mention of the subjunctive is often used as a status symbol: Virtually none of the things people believe about the subjunctive or its status in English are true. Most purists who witter on about it couldn’t actually pass a test on distinguishing subjunctive from nonsubjunctive clauses to save their sorry asterisks. But then they don’t have to: Merely mentioning the subjunctive approvingly and urging that it be taught is enough to establish one’s credentials as a better class of person. Historical change Old English had a morphological subjunctive, which was lost by the time of Shakespeare. The syntactic subjunctive of Modern English was more widely used in the past than it is today. Examples of subjunctive uses in archaic modern English: I will not let thee go, except [=unless] thou bless me. (King James Bible, Genesis 32:26) Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak. (Shakespeare, Hamlet) Older forms of modern English also make greater use of subject–auxiliary inversion in subjunctive clauses: Should you feel hungry, … (equivalent to If you (should) feel hungry) Be he called on by God, … (equivalent to "If he be (i.e. If he is) called on by God, …") Be they friend or foe, … (equivalent to "(No matter) whether they be friend or foe, …") Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home (from "Home! Sweet Home!"; meaning "even though") Some examples of this sort survive in common usage as set expressions: "come what may" "God forbid" "so be it" "so help me God" "be that as it may" See also Habitual be Notes References Bibliography Grammatical moods Subjunctive