Style. This is a term that is used to characterize the peculiarities that distinguish a writer or a composition. Correctness and clearness properly belong to the domain of diction; simplicity, conciseness, gravity, elegance, diffuseness, floridity, force, feebleness, coarseness, etc., belong to the domain of style.
Subjunctive Mood. This mood is unpopular with not a few now-a-day grammarians. One says that it is rapidly falling into disuse; that, in fact, there is good reason to suppose it will soon become obsolete. Another says that it would, perhaps, be better to abolish it entirely, as its use is a continual source of dispute among grammarians and of perplexity to schools. Another says that it is a universal stumbling-block; that nobody seems to understand it, although almost everybody attempts to use it.
That the subjunctive mood is much less used now than it was a hundred years ago is certain, but that it is obsolescent is very far from certain. It would not be easy, I think, to find a single contemporary writer who does not use it. That it is not always easy to determine what form of it we should employ is very true; but if we are justified in abolishing it altogether, as Mr. Chandler suggests, because its correct use is not always easy, then we are also justified in abolishing the use of shall and will, and of the prepositions, for surely their right use is likewise at times most puzzling. Meanwhile, most persons will think it well to learn to use the subjunctive mood properly. With that object in view, one can not, perhaps, do better than to attend to what Dr. Alexander Bain, Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen, says upon the subject. In Professor Bain's "Higher English Grammar" we find:
"In subordinate clauses.—In a clause expressing a condition, and introduced by a conjunction of condition, the verb is sometimes, but not always, in the subjunctive mood: 'If I be able,' 'if I were strong enough,' 'if thou should come.'
"The subjunctive inflexions have been wholly lost. The sense that something is wanting appears to have led many writers to use indicative forms where the subjunctive might be expected. The tendency appears strongest in the case of 'wert,' which is now used as indicative (for 'wast') only in poetical or elevated language.
"The following is the rule given for the use of the subjunctive mood:
"When in a conditional clause it is intended to express doubt or denial, use the subjunctive mood.[30] 'If I were sure of what you tell me, I would go.'
"When the conditional clause is affirmative and certain, the verb is indicative: 'If that is the case' (as you now tell me, and as I believe), 'I can understand you.' This is equivalent to a clause of assumption, or supposition: 'That being the case,' 'inasmuch as that is the case,' etc.
"As futurity is by its nature uncertain, the subjunctive is extensively used for future conditionality: 'If it rain, we shall not be able to go'; 'if I be well'; 'if he come shortly'; 'if thou return at all in peace'; 'though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' These events are all in the uncertain future, and are put in the subjunctive.[31]