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Another quality of a sentence is its ‘mood’, or more accurately the mood of its verb – another kind of verbal inflection used to express the speaker’s intention in a sentence, such as making a statement (indicative), giving a command (imperative), or posing a hypothetical situation (subjunctive). Here are some examples:

• INDICATIVE MOOD	She’s tired and exhausted.
	Summer is just around the corner.
	Is that all we’re having for dinner tonight?
• IMPERATIVE MOOD	Call me tomorrow.
	Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
	Tell me about it tomorrow.
• SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD	If I were you, I’d tell them about it.
	The judge ordered that he be tried for theft.
	The poor girl wished she were dead.

Although we often use the subjunctive mood without being aware of it (I wish you were here; God Save the Queen; So be it; If I were you I’d . . .) perhaps because such utterances are idiomatic, it is nevertheless the mood that gives us the most trouble.

Here is a sentence from the Guardian which, if it were grammatically correct (note the subjunctive were, indicating an imagined or possible situation), would have been expressed in the subjunctive mood:

Incorrect	No wonder the Tory Party turned him down as a possible candidate, suggesting he went away and came back with a better public image.
Correct	No wonder the Tory Party turned him down as a possible candidate, suggesting he go away and come back with a better public image.

Let’s face it – most of us would avoid such a construction where the correct use of the subjunctive mood requires grammatical know-how of a very high order. On the other hand we might have the wit to insert should before the verb go away, rendering the sentence both grammatically correct and more readable:

No wonder the Tory Party turned him down as a possible candidate, suggesting that he should go away and come back with a better public image.

The correct use of the subjunctive can undoubtedly look strange, as in this example quoted by Eric Partridge in his Usage and Abusage: Although he die now, his name will live. Not surprisingly most writers tend to avoid or ignore the subjunctive, so that sentences such as I insist that he is sacked (I insist that he be sacked) and It is to be hoped that she stops her bad behaviour (It is to be hoped that she stop her bad behaviour) are now considered acceptable. This may be so, but careful and elegant writers will always fall back on the subjunctive mood to express hypothetical situations in sentences usually containing if and that (If she were here, I would tell her about Tom; I suggest that she be told immediately.)