"(1) Would you prefer that we wait a little longer? (2) Would you prefer that we waited a little longer?" My take on (2) is that the past tense-marking here (-ed) has subjunctive meaning. In English over the centuries, the past subjunctive and indicative forms of the verb became identical (unlike in German, for instance). The present subjunctive came to be the base form of the verb. (Old English had more-distinct subjunctive forms, although the collapse was underway. See any grammar of Old English.) So, we have two ways of expressing the subjunctive after 'would' clauses; with the current present subjunctive (which looks just like the 'plain' base form of the verb) or the past subjunctive form (which looks just like the past indicative form of the verb). The collapsing together of indicative and subjunctive forms is what causes some analysts to say that English no longer has subjunctive mood, but meaningwise these examples make clear that it does. It's just that its markers are homonyms with indicative forms. We still have distinct subjunctive meaning, but no longer have distinct subjunctive forms. The change continues. Past perfect and past subjunctive are on the way out altogether. The younger generation increasingly uses simple past where us fogies would use past perfect, and is replacing subjunctive verb forms with 'would' + base form. In fact, this month's 'Word Court' in the Atlantic Monthly magazine had a letter lamenting the latter change. The answer to the letter did not acknowledge that this is a change underway and is probably inescapable. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics English Department, California Polytechnic State University One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-259 • E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ** "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~