@Warsaw WIll,

Yes, that question with "first, secondly, thirdly" confused me because it said "traditionally correct" and "technically perfect"; those two pieces seemed to contradict each other because "b" would be "traditionally correct" but "a" would be "technically perfect". Another question I remember was one on appositives, and I read in the comments that it actually is ambiguous, and at the time, I did not have a perfect understanding of restrictive appositives.

@Warsaw Will,

I was on the internet a few months ago looking for grammar tests to see whether I retained the stuff or not (I do this from time to time) and found an online test of ten (English grammar) questions from Gwynne. The last question was about the gerundive in Latin grammar. I was vexed by the stupidity of its inclusion.

Sorry for the delay in responding. Although I have since removed the spot in an edit, I will, by the aid of wikipedia, inform you as to what a lesovik:

"The Leshy or Lesovik is a male woodland spirit in Slavic mythology who protects wild animals and forests."

For the more of the sentence, which I did edit out but somehow still have it in another document, is (I forewarn you that I like to strive to write Proustian sentences and I will add notes in brackets for clarification):

"... he heaved one leg after the other over the log whose coves in the bark looked like face-paint adorned for a ritual, a festivity of submission to illusion, the woods [this is metaphorical and in relation to the festivity] where a person enjoyed getting lost although Marai was not lost but, if he were, would descend rather slowly into the superstition of the lesovik"

I suppose I could have coordinated the sentence at 'but'. When I first wrote it, my intention was that Marai was not currently in a state of superstition, but in the future, he may be. I realized the issue with the type of conditional that I was using.

I hope that the holidays and New Years went well for both of you, Jayles and Warsaw Will.

@AnWulf,

First, on Etymonline's giving of different roots might be because of cognates, which I am sure you are aware.

Second, because I have the compact version of the 20 volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary. This includes, from what I remember, quotations from various authors and some etymology, if you would like, you may ask me to look something up for you.

From your perspective, the Académie Française's condemnation must seem rather ironic to you, with so many Romantic words having been imported and incorporated into English.

@Warsaw Will

Yes, I agree with your point on number one. I have not checked the story in some time because I have been busy with school work.

Number two, however, is basically saying that currently Marai is not lost and not in this superstitious state, but if he were lost, he would be in that superstitious state. When I reread it myself, while finding selections of what I was talking about, it struck me as odd, and I might change it when I get a chance. Perhaps to be more lucid, what I am basically asking is: does the third conditional (past unreal/remote/real/open) go with the past tense and same with the second conditional with the present?

Shelfie, that is great.

@Jayles,

Yes, I am aware of mixed conditionals, but have not focused on them yet, and have made a chart using the terms of present open, past open, present remote, and past remote. I learned these terms from an insightful Grammar Girl article written by Neal Whitman, whose blog received a post from Warsaw Will himself. I do know the syntactic forms themselves. I would like to know more about your fourth point (I was come)?

@Warsaw Will,

For your example (ignore pronunciation), I will give two excerpts (from the same source) that I have written:

"The quiet, almost somnolent, wood was known as Fei, which, ironically, meant ebullience and energy despite its natural languor, Forest. If it were ever mentioned, which happened very little, Fei Forest would sometimes be referred to as the Crescent Forest because of how it curves around Braunvour Gulf."

And:

"...although Marai was not lost but, if he were, he would descend rather slowly into the superstition of the lesovik."

I am unsure whether it should be past unreal (remote) or present real (open). I might be having an issue with the usage of past and present in their names (the tense aspect of it).

I thank both of you and your help.

Yes, okay, that makes sense. All that the relative clause is doing is, more or less, stating a fact, like quote on book (2) and (3). The reason for my thinking that the requesting should be in past perfect was that it was written before the sending. But I think I read into a little more than I should have.

* I mean spoken prevalence.

@Teacher

According to Google's Ngram, it started about 1781 with a infinitesimal percent of 0.0000010225(%) in comparison to tomorrow with a slightly higher percent of 0.0001739213(%). Both have grown since then but with tomorrow dominating (in 2008, tomorrow: 0.0022047169%; on tomorrow: 0.0000071577%). Because Ngram searches books, it can have holes in its data, but because Ngram is not dialectological, it seems hard to accurately gauge the prevalence and distribution of the usage.