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Question

I wrote this to a friend--as a personal joke in a birthday card, but I had a few questions about its grammar.

Did u notice our conversation flowed like water in a stream? Then, out of nowhere, it stopped, abruptly, with no warning at all, as though a huge log, the size of Steve, lodged itself in the middle of the stream, causing the flow to stop and the friendship to seize, never to flow again, never to reunite.

1) lodged--Am I correct to say the plueperfect subjunctive is not required here, but the past subjunctive 'lodged' is?

2) never to flow again, never to reunite--I often see this phrase used in this way. Have I used it correctly? Are they just compound infinitive phrases of these two??

causing the flow to stop, and never to flow again

causing the friendship to seize, and never to reunite.

3) Are to flow and to stop both infinitives functioning as adjective complements?

Thanks for your help

Philip · Accepted Answer

~~seize~~ cease

1. it's not a subjunctive: you want the past perfect had lodged

2. ok in the original (and better than the other suggestions)

3. [I'm not sure what to call them.....someone else will answer this question.]

English 1b3 · Answer

My spelling is horrid, but I still will call that a brain lapse, and not a fault of my own

Subjunctive is necessary isn't it? 'as though' and 'as if' require the subjunctive:

http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxsubjun.html

And the two sentences I provided below the original were not alternative writings, but rather were exemplifying how the phrases were used in the original.

Cheers.

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