"We recommend that she (should?) be appointed."

[Patrick Gillard]

Could I have some feedback, especially from American English speakers,
about the acceptability or formality of the two possible structures
shown in the sentence in the subject header.

Would you expect a verb such as 'recommend' to be followed by a phrase
beginning with 'should' or 'ought to', or would you expect the sentence
to be:"We recommend that she be appointed", or even "We recommend she be
appointed"

For ease of reference, I'll call this last structure a 'subjunctive'
structure. My understanding of the distribution of this kind of pattern
is that the subjunctive is hardly ever used in British English (my
variety) but that it is reasonably frequent in written American English,
even though the structures with 'should' are more common.

Does this match other people's perception of the way these structures
are used? Does anyone have any concrete statistics on their relative
distribution?

Thanks in advance,
--
Patrick Gillard

[James-henry Holland]

In article <gWBO2CAH...@faustina.demon.co.uk>, Patrick Gillard

<pat...@faustina.demon.co.uk> wrote:
.
>
> Would you expect a verb such as 'recommend' to be followed by a phrase
> beginning with 'should' or 'ought to', or would you expect the sentence
> to be:"We recommend that she be appointed", or even "We recommend she be
> appointed"

Hi--

I'm a simple sample American-- I believe that in speech I say, "I recommend
*that* she be appointed," but would feel more elegant writing, "I recommend
she be appointed." Gee, this thinks me of a question to post (That's
Pennsylvania "dutch" dialect there...)

james-henry holland
japanese language and culture
hobart and william smith colleges

[Rich Veraa]

In article <gWBO2CAH...@faustina.demon.co.uk>,
Patrick Gillard <pat...@faustina.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Could I have some feedback, especially from American English speakers,
>about the acceptability or formality of the two possible structures
>shown in the sentence in the subject header.

>Would you expect a verb such as 'recommend' to be followed by a phrase

>beginning with 'should' or 'ought to', or would you expect the sentence
>to be:"We recommend that she be appointed", or even "We recommend she be
>appointed"

The last is a perfectly good use of the subjunctive. One could also say,
"Our recommendation is that she be appointed."

It's probably correct to say "We recommend that she should be appointed,"
but it souunds so awkward.

Cheers,
Rich

Have you kissed your parrot today? 0
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[Linda Reynolds]

> In article <gWBO2CAH...@faustina.demon.co.uk>,
> Patrick Gillard <pat...@faustina.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Could I have some feedback, especially from American English speakers,
> >about the acceptability or formality of the two possible structures
> >shown in the sentence in the subject header.
>
> >Would you expect a verb such as 'recommend' to be followed by a phrase
> >beginning with 'should' or 'ought to', or would you expect the sentence
> >to be:"We recommend that she be appointed", or even "We recommend she be
> >appointed"

How kind of you to ask! Since the verb "recommend" is a verb of
volition, the use of auxiliary verbs of obligation such as "should",
"ought to" and "must" are considered redundant. There is a footnote in
one grammar I regularly use that states that this is common usage in
Britain, but not considered correct in "academic" American English.

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