Leezie, of course you are right. These phrases are colloquialisms, not Standard English, and living actoss the Pond I have never heard them used. But I fear your friend has, too, committed a solecism in suggesting they have to do with grammar: they do not. The Romans had a similar trick with town names, where words such as "in", "from" and "to" were omitted ( Romam = to Rome, Romae = at Rome, Roma = from Rome) but were put in almost all other situations. In English we leave out "on" for tomorrow, today and yesterday, but Americans like to leave it out for names of days of the week, too, where across the pond we happily say "on Monday" or "on Mondays", for example. But all that is not under the heading of grammar, which concerns itself with working out such things as sorting out "he/him" or "they/them" or "she/her" according to the function of words within the context of a sentence.
I share your reservation about cute colloquialisms being used in schools, where we are supposed to be taught how to prepare for whatever life offers, as the pupils or students may confuse them with Standard English and make themselves look like dopes in future years at times when they must be able, when the occasion demands, to show their employers and customers they know better. Do their teachers not show them the way how to do it? Do they themselves not know any better? However, I like the idea of such colloquialisms being used in less formal situations, where they do not 'matter' in this way, churches, and most workplaces, where they just add to the fun of life's rich comedy. Nobody minds the overexcited pastor getting his words in a twist as he rouses the crowd to a frenzy of ecstasy, indeed it is known that speaking in tongues is all part of a good crowd-pleaser; the blue-collar worker is hardly expected to modulate his vowels nor his syntax in harmony with the strictest dictates of some grumpy old grammarian. But educate the young so that they might be equipped to know which is Standard and which is local dialect. It is not hard: give them books to read. The publishers would not publish them if they were not written in good English, would they?
Your kids who are pleased they are going to the football game on today may just be saying they are pleased that the match is not off today because of the bad weather, but has been declared on, after all. I speak facetiously, of course.

'Truth Whisperer' suggested in July that 'To spell or pronounce it other than the U.S. English norm is an affectation. The practice is right up there with using French words that people believe will afford a certain caché to a business, party, luncheon'.
Oh dear. You have yourself used a French word that you suppose will afford ... "caché??"
You mean cachet, I think. I am minded of the advertisement I saw in the local newspaper to sell a house round here in a "sort after area". If you want to employ fancy talk, get it right, I say. I always do.

Well you're wrong. The dictionary has it as pronounced: résumé. You just pronounce it wrongly. Your version has "re-" rhymes with 'the', as in 'the-zoom-ay' but in fact the cognoscenti say "ray-zoom-ay". Oh well, never mind.

I was quoting Jasper:
"I'd simply add the word still:
"If I were still the Prime Minister, ..."

and Warsaw Will:
"All three candidates for prime minister at the last election, in other words the leaders of the three main UK parties, David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg."

Historical point: Gordon Brown was the prime minister and leader of the Labour party and candidate for the job of staying in office, and was still the prime minister until the coalition came into being, ending the candidate and prime minister bits of that, and then the leader bit when he resigned from that position, allowing the election of Miliband. Worth mentioning all that to get the understanding of the language right:

Linguistic point: You can't make a conditional, Jasper, by inserting "still". Brown still was prime minister, so no "if "about it, and the others never had been, so could not use "still prime minister".

That's what I meant, W Will.

Now that Brown is not prime minister any more he can say "if I were still prime minister", followed by another subjunctive clause telling us what he would do, for instance. The others can't. because Cameron still is, and Clegg never was.

'Nuff said about subjunctives by me.

Okay W Will, I go along with what you say. I dispute none of your latest message. It's possibly a bit like the Archbishop of Canterbury and Prof Dawkins (a well-known scientist and atheist in the UK) arguing different views about religion: they actually both hold exactly the same thinking if only they knew it, but are divided by the way in which the same words they both use have different meanings in each one's head. In other words we have been arguing over terminology. I have learned much from this conversation and appreciate it. Best wishes to you and all the denizens of those expat bars in Warsaw of whom you speak so warmly elsewhere. (My computer spellcheck doesn't like 'expat' but I don't pay attention to such 'authorities'. I see it doesn't like 'spellcheck' either!).

or indeed none of them had been prime minister, surely? Did Gordon Brown say this? Or was it the candidates for Labour leader after GB resigned from that position?

I said pouvoir, devoir, vouloir are French verbs which inflect, which means they are "main" verbs, followed by an infinitive, a secondary, dependant verb. To call them modal is an interesting version. If you say "I want to swim" what are you doing ... wanting or swimming? I say wanting, so that is the main verb, not a subsidiary or secondary or dependant or modal verb. That's all. Their Latin, German ... equivalents do the same. That was why we didn't have any need to make life hard for ourselves by talking of modals.

Now that you have introduced to me the notion of these modals, I took the term to mean those words we need in English, for which Latin and French have no need as they are inflected, in order for us and German speakers to build up the expression of different tenses, voices and moods.

I quote you: 'modals have no person or number - they can occasionally express tense, or at least time'. You also say elsewhere today that devoir, vouloir, and pouvoir are modals. I say to this, 'Houston ... we have a problem'. Well, not Houston, Warsaw. I rest my case.

AnWulf: I thank you for your most lucid exposition of the usage and meaning of the word "Yank". I may sometimes adjust my usual greeting on entering a pub, to "harrorehh, y'all, howzitt?!" (Scot, US and SA) but only if I know the folk already there, and only if I am intoxicated on arrival. But I would never call them Yanks, for 1) fear of causing offence and 2) because I never have gone and never do go to the US, so they wouldn't be.

She insists / proposes (that) he should pay for the meal is fine if she said "You should pay for the meal". But if she said "You pay for the meal, okay?" then she insists that he pays/pay for the meal. No 'should' about it.That's clearer than my earlier rambling stuff.

"He asks that we should be ready to leave at eight" is fine too, if he said "You should be ready at eight", but not if he said "I want you to be ready at eight".

I.e., if "should" is used in the original direct statement, then the reported, indirect statement uses it, not otherwise.

W Will
thanks for all that very detailed information.
I must disagree on a number of points, but it is all very interesting.

First: I don't agree with your chart of indicative/subjunctive forms of 'be' in the past tense: was/were indicative, yes, but "were to have been" subjunctive, not was/were.

Next: I don't agree that 'should' does the job of subjunctive, so your examples:
She insists / proposes (that) he should pay for the meal - that is a statement: he should because it is his turn, or whatever, adding a new dimension to what is going on. If is just what she insists/proposes, then I would say either "She insists he pay, or pays, for the bill. Subjunctive or indicative mood here, all down to personal preference here, (so that's the third thing I disagree with you on, as personal choice is allowed - sometimes: see below with ref. to the Aeneid).

"He asks that we should be ready to leave at eight". No, he asks us to be ready, or asks that we be ready. 'Should' suggests some extra level of obligation, a new dimension not intended here.
"She requests that we should not make too much noise". No. She requests us not to make ...
He recommends (that) the tablets should be taken after meals. This is wrong but not so much so, if you accept an extra element of obligation, as in 'he's the doc and he says if you don't then there may be a bad consequence, like you'll die', ie the tablets MUST be taken then, to some extent. Otherwise, he recommends that the tablets be taken ... if it doesn't matter greatly but he thinks that's the best time.

And fourthly, Ah yes, all that stuff about moods and modals. To me your modal verbs such as should and can are main verbs, not modals, (French devoir and pouvoir conjugate according to the subject, the dependent, secondary verbs goes in the infinitive form, same with Latin debere and posse) and the only modal verbs you mention which I call modals too, now, are parts of the verb 'to be' which are used to form different tenses and moods: be, is, am, are, will, used to, shall, would, would have ...
Over my teaching career the moods were the indicative and subjunctive and imperative. There were no modals. My dictionary says that modals are verb or auxiliary verb forms used to express a distinction of mood, such as that between possibility and actuality. That's it. So all that extra you have supplied is new to me and very interesting, all designed to help explain things to ESL students I think. But I am still playing devil's advocate to all of it, in that I am going through it most critically.

My function was to show people how to translate into English from languages where no 'modals' were used: first recognise the other language verbs were in a different form if they were subjunctive, then realise why, and finally express it in a level of English beyond that of everyday speech, but in such a way as to show that the other language's forms had been noticed and noted and dealt with. There is a huge width of possibility in doing this, otherwise why would the Iliad and the Aeneid continue to be translated half a dozen times a year by countless boffins, all coming up with different versions? All a matter of style in English, the richest one of the lot, really.

"Irrealis modality is a modality that connotes that the proposition with which it is associated is nonactual or nonfactual."

Jings! Crivvens! Help ma boab! as we Scots say in moments of extremis, such as on reading this. I googled it, thinking you were having me on. What sort of people dreamed up this guff, when all along we had the subjunctive mood to deal with the matter perfectly affably and easily? Did these folk have nothing better to do? Irrealis indeed. It does not exist in my dictionary, so it must have been invented by the sort of people who like calling meetings and attending them, and making things which are simple look complicated. I came upon this sort in my latter days in the teaching trade - they also loved computers and spreadsheets and putting things into files and making everyone's life a misery!

Now, you say that 'the result clause of a hypothetical conditional is most definitely not in the subjunctive, it uses a modal. Just as in romance languages the if clause is in the subjunctive mood, but the result clause is in the conditional mood.' To this I reply "what?". As the subjunctive is a modal, 'it uses a modal' goes without saying, but you say the result clause is conditional, not subjunctive. And the difference would be ...?

Would an example help?