I am saddened to see that professor Jacob Levy is taking a leave of absence from the blogosphere. His blog is almost entirely responsible for my becoming interested in reading blogs at all, and to my starting one of my own. When co-crescatter Peter Northup forwarded me a link to jacobtlevy.blogspot.com in the summer of 2002, through Levy I discovered Volokh, and between the two of them, a new and far more efficient way to waste time was born. Eventually, a desire to be noticed by and impress them (mostly by arguing with them) more or less inspire me to try my own hand.

Sic transit....

As a side note to Amanda's post mentioning future subjunctives -- to my (admittedly, limited) knowledge, English -- and I'd venture to guess most languages, with the exception of archaic Spanish, and perhaps German -- does not sport such a construct, but instead prefers what I think is referred to as the future participle.

The distinction is slight: whereas the subjunctive mood is utilized to describe thoughts or ideas that were or currently are in the hypothetical, almost all action in the future is in the hypothetical (with, of course, various degrees of respect to physical and philosophical constraints), and hence the tense.

Despite whether or not you agree with my argument here, Robert Penn Warren's 'You or Jo-Belle might go up a little later and see if she will take some broth and egg or something like that' is not exactly a counterexample, as it is the subjunctive mood used incorrectly (but sadly, dialectually accurately) to portray an indirect question. Were the brothers Fowler to edit it, (but they are not) the sentence might look something closer to: 'Later, go [imperative -- note plural imperative is the same as the singular] to her and ask [again, imperative] if she might take [subjunctive used in an indirect question] broth and egg, or something of that nature.

Certainly less fun, I think, but certainly more grammatically correct.

At Southern Appeal, the Rice Grad writes:

Besides, this election is about the supreme branch of government: the courts. If you're happy with another Justice Ginsburg, then don't vote for Bush. If you like Thomas, Scalia or Rehnquist, it's a no brainer to vote for Bush.

Did you hear that last paragraph, Will? ;)

I have before me a small sack of a substance called "Sol Kminkowo Czosnkowa" (which poltran helpfully translates as "Sol Kminkowo Czosnkowa"). It's some sort of coarse salt with unidentified spices mixed into it. The gentleman who sold it to my girlfriend assured her that it was good on "Chicken, fish, soups, anything."

I haven't yet been able to lay in a serious larder, but I can report that it is splendid sprinkled liberally on a lightly mashed potato (skin on, always), and a couple of chopped soft-boiled eggs. In the highly unlikely event that any readers should stumble across this mysterious substance, I highly recommend purchasing it.