forfeit
- Thread starter LynnKHollander
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That sounds wrong to me because you haven't said whose lives are in question. Also, "are" is present tense so your preceding phrase needs to also be present tense.
E.g. "For filling a teacup with pee and pouring it on the Queen's head, their lives are forfeit."
Alternatively, in past tense:
"If they filled a teacup with pee and poured it on the Queen's head, their lives would be forfeit."
E.g. "For filling a teacup with pee and pouring it on the Queen's head, their lives are forfeit."
Alternatively, in past tense:
"If they filled a teacup with pee and poured it on the Queen's head, their lives would be forfeit."
I agree. Their lives should be forfeit for their vile act. They forfeited their rights to live by pouring pee on the queen.
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Not necessarily. The tense used implies quite different things. If you say "were forfeit" you mean they have been killed. If you say "are forfeit" it means they deserve to be killed.
caw
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'If they were to kill one of the king's deer, even by accident, their lives were forfeit' is perfectly correct. (Dontcha just lurve subjunctives?)
"Should a man kill one of my deer, even without intent, his life is forfeit" said the king. is also correct. The use of the present tense would be mostly in direct speech. If your narrative is in the past tense, as is often the case, then "was forfeit" (pl. "were forfeit") is correct usage.
"Should a man kill one of my deer, even without intent, his life is forfeit" said the king. is also correct. The use of the present tense would be mostly in direct speech. If your narrative is in the past tense, as is often the case, then "was forfeit" (pl. "were forfeit") is correct usage.
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Context, context , context.
In proper context there's nothing wrong with it.
But we have a snippet with no context.
Therefore, we guess.
In proper context there's nothing wrong with it.
But we have a snippet with no context.
Therefore, we guess.
I beg to differ - if you had (or, AmEng: 'would have') written 'their lives would be forfeit', your statement would have been perfectly correct as a second conditional (where 'were to kill' is in indeed subjunctive). But 'were forfeit' mandates the condition to be stated as a first conditional, in the past indicative mood - 'If they killed'.
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No one is allowed to be offensive, and I'm not delighted with the tone of the comment in question either.
Also, can I please request that, rather than bringing these quarrels on-thread, you use the little triangle-with-exclamation-mark button to report posts that you find inappropriate? That will send me an email, and I can deal with things in a way that's less disruptive to the conversation itself.
I don't think this is a question that can easily be answered without seeing a larger chunk of the material. My own feeling (which means it could easily be wrong) is that since you start out with an "If", then you need a "would be" rather than "are". But really, it would be much clearer if you rewrote to say whose lives would be forfeit.
I've seen the phrase "lives are forfeit" in other narratives, usually of older books or books set in older historical times. It simply is a slightly archaic way of saying "lives should be forfeited."
caw
caw
It' all about tense, and there's no way of knowing whether the tense is correct other than by reading the surrounding text. This phrase is part of something larger, and the correct tense is determined by that.
Context, context , context.
In proper context there's nothing wrong with it.
But we have a snippet with no context.
Therefore, we guess. --Sorry. Full quote:
"But if this is organized prostitution and murder of children, lives are forfeit. Any adult in this mess, a killer of children or an abuser of children, dies."
In proper context there's nothing wrong with it.
But we have a snippet with no context.
Therefore, we guess. --Sorry. Full quote:
"But if this is organized prostitution and murder of children, lives are forfeit. Any adult in this mess, a killer of children or an abuser of children, dies."