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I heard native speakers use present tense in the following sentence.

  • Would it be alright if I take a rain check?
  • Would it be alright if I call you Annie?
    • But I think the correct grammar is took and called. Are there any circumstances to allow present tense in subjunctives?
    Taro
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      You are correct - but questions like those are asked in informal conversation, in which people are often careless about grammar. – Kate Bunting Jan 20 '22 at 12:57
    • [This](https://ell.stackexchange.com/a/14367/1301) may answer your question. – tvk Jun 07 '22 at 14:02
    • In such informal contexts, the speaker's mind is pretty much made up (there is no or little element of real doubt, which would trigger the subjunctive) and there are gauging whether the interlocutor would terribly mind or not. – Deipatrous Aug 15 '22 at 10:01
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      Important tip: Most guides consider "alright" a slang contraction. The correct spelling is "all right." – user8356 Oct 19 '22 at 14:05

    3 Answers3

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    Present Tense

    Would it be alright if I take a rain check?

    • Would it be alright if I request [present tense] for a future opportunity [noun]?
    • Would it be alright if I get [present tense] a voucher for later [noun]?
    • Would it be alright if I reschedule [present tense] (the event) [noun]?

    Would it be alright if I call you Annie?

    The verb is possibly used as a present tense subjunctive, by taking the infinitive form and removing "to". (See present tense Subjunctive below)

    • Would it be alright if I were to call you Annie?

    Either way, they are asking for permission to call her "Annie" from this point (in time) forward.

    Past Tense

    • Would it be alright if I took a rain check?
    • Would it be alright if I called you Annie?

    These sentences could be understood two different ways depending on context:

    1. You are right that the speaker could be using the subjunctive mood that suggests a desire for things to be different than the currently are.  (see Subjunctives below)

    2. However, the speaker could be asking if what they did in the past was allowed or acceptable.

      • Would it be alright if I took [past tense] your car yesterday?
      • Would it be alright if I called [past tense] you Annie (in the book I wrote)?
      • Would it be alright if I left [past tense] the oven on (before I went to work)?

    Subjunctives

    "Are there any circumstances to allow present tense in subjunctives?"

    Present Tense Subjunctives

    This snippet below from gymglish.com1 has a good answer for your question about present tense subjunctives:

    The present subjunctive is used in constructions such as:

      They suggested that he come with them.

    In English, the present subjunctive functions independently of time. It is formed by taking the infinitive form of the verb and removing "to".

    Subjunctive Mood

    This snippet from Wikipedia has a good explanation of what defines subjunctive mood 2.

    The subjunctive is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as: wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred.

    [1] https://www.gymglish.com/en/gymglish/english-grammar/the-subjunctive-present-tense

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood

    Franklin Duncan
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      This answer has misinformation. 1) You write "The verb is used as an infinitive", but it is actually a finite verb. 2) You include a quotation from gymglish about the present subjunctive in a that-clause, but OP was asking about the present indicative in an if-clause, a very different construction. 3) Your examples under "past tense" #2 are possible but unlikely; for example, if "took" were really describing past action, then much more likely would be: "Would it **have been** alright if I took your car yesterday?" – MarcInManhattan Sep 02 '22 at 23:54
    • @MarcInManhattan, thank you for your comment. 1) Answer adjusted to show the infinitive explained in the present tense subjunctive section. 2) The OP specifically asked about this. Furthermore, the linked reference provides more examples that do not use a "that" clause. 3) Likelihood is irrelevant. Context is key. The question is what are the differences in meaning and what are phrases are grammatically acceptable. – Franklin Duncan Sep 04 '22 at 05:02
    • 2) OP did NOT ask about the [present subjunctive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive). We know that because he or she specifically asks about "present tense", whereas the present subjunctive always uses the infinitive form, not a tensed form. For example, the example you cite from gymglish uses "he come", and the linked gymglish page uses the infinitive forms "be", "go", and "save". None of those is in the present tense. – MarcInManhattan Sep 04 '22 at 13:48
    • 3) The point that I was making had nothing to do with likelihood; your version and mine both use "would". The issue is with sequencing of events. Your version says would it **be** alright now if something happened yesterday, whereas mine says would **have been** alright yesterday if something happened yesterday. As I said, your version is grammatically correct, but it is less likely. – MarcInManhattan Sep 04 '22 at 13:52
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    Seems they want to do it right now, your suggestions, at least for me, seems they are asking they could have called in the past, but they want to do it right now.

    Jandrei
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      Downvoted because this is too vague and hypothetical for an official answer. – Kate Bunting Jan 20 '22 at 12:59
    • Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Jan 20 '22 at 13:23
    • This could be more suitable as a comment than an answer? – tvk Jun 07 '22 at 13:32
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    Those are the examples of the spoken AmE or BrE when smbd asking for advice. Both types of utterances are possible in the spoken conversation. Though, the utterance having the Present tense in the if clause has got a grammatical typo if it is in the written form . The written sentence usually looks as this: "Would it be allright? Err... If I take a raincoat ?" in many cases; or the way you showed it in your request because of the mistakes of auditory perception due to the lack of the colloquial speech's practice.

    kngram
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