"tense" with as though

The perfect tense is often optional. The rules relate more to when you may not use it than to when you must.

In this case, "to act" is non-finite. It was silly to act how?

I guess you could use the perfect infinitive followed by the past perfect:

It was silly to have acted as though she had needed the money.

(In this way, b

Hi M,

http://www.eslmonster.com/article/as-ifas-though-past-subjunctive

A simple google search led me to this article. Whether we can trust it or not is another thing.

Hi, English,

Thanks for the link. It's surely pertinent.

But this is still a mind boggler. I hadn't even gotten around to thinking of this as a subjunctive.

mitsuwao23it was silly to act as though she needed that money to survive.

So we compare this to: He talks/talked as though he knew who Jane was.

Hi A

I am quite confident as though/as if calls for the subjunctive. I've read quite a lot on subjunctive, all articles listing this as an instance where the subjunctive is needed.

In your final example sentences, where the words that follow are not hypothetical, we do not use the subjunctive.

Regarding your final statement (sorry, I my quote button seems not to be worki

The attachment looked terrible. I hope this works better.

Hmmm, somehow we're misconnecting on a couple of details, English.

English 1b3I am quite confident as though/as if calls for the subjunctive.

I accept this. There are many many cases where indicative and subjunctive inflections are identical, so we often write and speak in the subjunctive without realizing it.

English 1b3In your final e

mitsuwao23The attachment looked terrible. I hope this works better.

Thanks for clearing that up, mitsuwao! [Y]

My brain is fried at the moment. I'll get back to you. - A.