Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 2 July 2011

Subjunctivitis

issue 02 July 2011

An American soldier just back from Afghanistan said on television that he thought his fellow combatants should not be withdrawn ‘until the country is stable enough that it can stand on its own feet’. What struck me was not the opinion on strategy but the grammar.

Instead of saying ‘stable enough that it can’, I’d have said ‘stable enough to stand’.

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