Nebraska Cornhusker Must Beware of Errant Passes and Errant Sentences

Sam Keller, formerly a quarterback on Arizona State University's football team, and currently the starter with the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team, related the interesting story of his having faced the University of Southern California Trojans a few years back when Arizona State was ranked 14th in the nation. Although ahead of USC at halftime, Keller returned in the second half to mostly throw interceptions as his Sundevils lost to Matt Leinart and USC. Not long after, Keller lost his starting job and left Arizona State.

Keller will soon face the Trojans again, and once again his team is ranked 14th in the nation, except he will now start for Nebraska his transfer school. His performance may or may not be so fractured as his sentence in explaining the history described above, adding that were it not for the injury he suffered, history might have been different, so often proven true in other cases. Note: In Keller's sentence below, "That" refers to Keller's hypothetical, longer tenure as a successful quarterback with the Arizona State's football team:

"That could have happened if I didn't get hurt, or could have happened if I had beaten USC."

We may ague that Do and did may be substituted for action verbs (although why settle for less!). However, in this case, substituting do and its forms (did, don't, didn't) for action verbs is not the question. Keller's grammar infraction was that he violated the subjunctive mood. He used didn't, (a negative form of do in the past tense, which is otherwise fine, except not when the subjunctive mood is required. Keller used the indicative mood).

The rule is, you must not substitute a form of do for a form of be when expressing the subjunctive mood. When you see or hear an "if," you are often setting up a hypothetical situation, requiring a clause in the subjunctive mood and therefore a verb in the subjunctive mood. Keller was expressing not a fact but a conception; he was expressing a hypothetical event. He should have said: "That could have happened if I were not hurt. Other creative means of avoiding the mistake include: "That could have happened if I hadn't suffered an injury," or, clumsily, "That could have happened if I hadn't gotten injured," or, dramatically, "That could have happened if an injury hadn't struck me down."