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In this line: God save the earth! … and the Queen too if God so chooses. Was the word “chooses” correctly used?

EmilyJ
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    Hello, Emily. The formulaic subjunctive exclamations are archaic, and few and far between. There are no Google hits in searches for either "and the Queen too if God so choose" or "and the Queen too if God so chooses". The switch from subjunctive to indicative is jarring, but perhaps less so than the startling 'if God so choose'. I'm not sure that there's a correct fit here. Perhaps 'if God should so choose'. Or 'if it be His will'. Or 'if it's his will'. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 01 '21 at 11:37
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    Requests for proofreading are not on-topic here, so technically it would be nice to focus your question a bit more. The title asks whether it's subjunctive (see FumbleFingers' link; "save" is but "chooses" is not) and the body simply asks whether it's correct. I suspect that your real question is whether it's okay to shift the mood like that; if so, could you edit to make that clear? – Andy Bonner Nov 01 '21 at 14:04
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    Yes, the word chooses was correctly used. The present subjunctive is not used after if any longer. Mostly it's restricted to formulas and famous quotations. – John Lawler Nov 01 '21 at 15:38
  • @JohnLawler your comment addressed my question. Gracias! – EmilyJ Nov 01 '21 at 15:52
  • @EdwinAshworth, That was what I thought. Thank you. – EmilyJ Nov 01 '21 at 15:54
  • @AndyBonner, u were right. But u did answered my question. Thanks. – EmilyJ Nov 01 '21 at 15:55

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