Just one railcar missing from the morning train commute can easily demonstrate how far civility has plummeted. The five-car train reduced to four cars meant standing room only. The train was packed. Still, packages clustered on seats from earlier-boarding passenger remained unmoved so that other passengers could not be seated. The passengers who stood in the aisles numbered more women than men. Not one seated male passenger offered his seat to a standing woman.
Just as an English grammarian notes the gradual demise of the subjunctive case in English grammar, something feels missing. Mostly vanishing from English usage is the classic subjunctive phrasing, “If I were you,” replaced by the colloquial but grammatically incorrect, “If I was you.”
So, likewise, courteous behavior is apparently vanishing from our societal deportment. For a seated man not to give up his seat for a standing woman was once unthinkable. Now—not so much.
What I missed on this morning’s train ride was anything resembling the notion, “If I were more civil, I would give up my seat for a woman.”
Beautiful! Civil and subjunctive!