Here we come to the really sticky part. Marriage is negatively correlated with smoking; that’s a fact. A typical way to express that fact is to say “If you’re a smoker, you’re less likely to be married.” But one small change makes the meaning very different: “If you were a smoker, you’d be less likely to be married.” It seems strange that changing the sentence from the indicative to the subjunctive mood can change what it says so drastically. But the first sentence is merely a statement about what is the case. The second concerns a much more delicate question: What would be the case if we
...more
