Subjunctive in English

[Noelia]

I ran across this sentence today and I thought I would have said it differently:

(they were talking about net neutrality)

"Call your members of Congress today and demand that Net Neutrality be protected."

I'd never have said it that way, I'd have said:

"Call your members of Congress today and demand Net Neutrality to be protected."


Is my version wrong? Less common? Sound foreign?

Noelia

[Robie]

In this context, I might say

"Call your members of Congress today and demand (that) Net Neutrality be protected."

I think "that" could be optional but I don't think saying "to be" in this context sounds right to me.

I am trying to think of when I might say "to be" and I can only think of a couple things:

1) "To be or not to be....." or "To be patient/hungry/dirty/angry....." as a subject of the sentence

2) "I want to be[/u] (something/somewhere)....".
In this case, I think of the word "to" belonging to "want" and forming "want to" and the "be" is separate. It seems that the "to" sticks with "want" because I wouldn't say "I could to be...." or "I might to be..." but "I want to be..." is perfectly normal. (Does this answer make it a phrasal verb that you like so well?)

Also, "I want to stay/go/eat/drink/dance/etc".

This could also work with "demand" or "refuse".

"I demand to/refuse to be/stay/go/eat/drink/dance/etc."

So I think there's some kind of grammatical pattern but I'm not sure how to describe it. Am I allowed to say "Tienes que memorizarlo"?

3) Similar to #2, I could say "I want it to be protected" but not "I want that it to be protected".

4) And just to confuse everything, I think this sounds ok, too:

"Call your members of Congress today and demand for Net Neutrality to be protected".

Sorry, this question provoked a lot of thought and I'm not sure if my thoughts helped or hurt your understanding. I'll be interested to see what everybody else says about this!

Robie

[Noelia]

Ok sometimes we learn to follow certain patterns in a language and the brain automatically applies them to everything similar, that's why I always keep confusing sentences like:

- It's phonetics what that drive me crazy

- Es la fonética lo que me vuelve loca.
- Es la fonética que me vuelve loca.

Because "what" for me is "lo que" and "that" is just "que" which in that context, makes no sense for me.

But you can easily see the mistake from your side, because you do say "es la fonetica que me vuelve loca" without the "lo" right?

Now, back to the original sentence, I'm used to translate stuff like this:

- I want Mark to be the president = Quiero que Mark sea el presidente

And my brain automatically applied that pattern to anything that looks like it, not thinking about the context.

Now I know the difference, it's just a matter of remembering to either say "be" or use "for" before "to be". It wasn't confusing at all, thanks Robie!

Noelia

[johnr]

<<Because "what" for me is "lo que" and "that" is just "que" which in that context, makes no sense for me.>>

Muy muy interesante, porque hace unos meses que he estado pensando sobre esto y ahora todo tiene sentido. Es interesante que se pueda aprender más sobre el idioma que se trata de aprender por el aprendizaje del idioma materno.

[Noelia]

Si, por eso la idea del foro es buena, porque a veces la duda de uno, también es la de otro, aunque sea en otro idioma. Me alegro que te haya servido!

Noelia