Conditional and Subjunctive Mood Examples in Proverbs, Quotations and Rhymes
1. Comment on the use of the Conditional Mood in complex sentences expressing unreal condition in the following proverbs and sayings.
- If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
- If there were no clouds, we should not enjoy the sun.
- If it were not for hope, the heart would break.
- If the pills were pleasant, they would not be guilded.
- If things were to be done twice all would be wise.
- If "ifs" and "ans" were pots and pans.
- Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.
- Pigs might fly if they had wings.
- If my aunt had been a man, she’d have been my uncle.
- If each would sweep before his own door, we should have a clean city.
2. Comment on the use of the Subjunctive Mood forms in the following quotations and funny rhymes – complex sentences with subordinate clauses of condition.
- If I could always read, I should never feel the want of society. (J. Byron)
- If If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work. (W. Shakespeare)
- If I hadn’t been a writer, I think I should have been a gardener. (A. Ckekhov)
- We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had no childhood in it. (G. Eliot)
- I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would made myself remembered. (J. Keats)
- Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. (H. Longfellow)
- If all the world were just, there would be no need of valour. (Plutarch)
- If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero. (F. Voltaire)
- If dogs could talk, perhaps we’d find it just as hard to get along with them as we do with people. (K. Čapek)
- If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. (Ch. Dickens)
- If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter the whole history of the world would have been different. (B. Pascal)
- If I were not Alexander I would wish to be Diogenes. (Alexander of Macedon)
13. Nursery Rhymes
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side.
And "ifs" and "ands"
Were pots and pans
There’d be no work for thinkers.
14. Topsy-Turvy World
If the butterfly
courted the bee,
And the owl
the porcupine;
If churches were
built in the sea,
And three times
one was nine;
If the pony rode
his master,
If the buttercups
ate the cows,
If the cats had the
dire disaster
To be worried, sir,
by the mouse;
If mamma, sir,
sold the baby
To a gypsy
for half a crown;
If a gentleman, sir,
was a lady,—
The world would
be Upside-down!
If any or all
these wonders
Should ever come about,
I should not consider
them blunders,
For I should be
Inside-out!
(William Brighty Rands)