In traditional grammar, the mood of the verb used in ordinary statements: stating a fact, expressing an opinion, asking a question. (See Examples and Observations, below.)
There are three major moods in English: the indicative mood is used to make factual statements or pose questions, the imperative mood to express a request or command, and the (rarely used) subjunctive mood to show a wish, doubt, or anything else contrary to fact.
See also:
Etymology:
From the Latin, "stating"
Examples and Observations:
- "The mood of the verb tells us in what manner the verb is communicating the action. When we make basic statements or ask questions, we use the indicative mood, as in I leave at five and Are you taking the car? The indicative mood is the one we use most often."
(Ann Batko, When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People. Career Press, 2004)
- "I caught the blackjack right behind my ear. A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom."
(Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe, Murder, My Sweet, 1944) - Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation.
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
(Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart as Joel Cairo and Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon, 1941) - "There are only three ways to deal with a blackmailer. You can pay him and pay him and pay him until you’re penniless. Or you can call the police yourself and let your secret be known to the world. Or you can kill him."
(Edward G. Robinson as Professor Richard Wanley, The Woman in the Window, 1944)
- Betty Schaefer: Don't you sometimes hate yourself?
Joe Gillis: Constantly.
(Nancy Olson and William Holden as Betty Schaefer and Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard, 1950) - "She liked me. I could feel that. The way you feel when the cards are falling right for you, with a nice little pile of blue and yellow chips in the middle of the table. Only what I didn’t know then was that I wasn’t playing her. She was playing me, with a deck of marked cards . . .."
(Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff, Double Indemnity, 1944) - "Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she’d ever met. I was in complete accord with her."
(Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker, Laura, 1944) - "Personally, I’m convinced that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."
(Eve Arden as Ida Corwin, Mildred Pierce, 1945)
- The Traditional Moods
"The labels indicative, subjunctive, and imperative were applied to verb forms in traditional grammars, such that they recognized 'indicative verb forms,' 'subjunctive verb forms,' and 'imperative verb forms.' Indicative verb forms were said to be true by the speaker ('unmodalized' statements) . . .. [I]t is better to regard mood as a non-inflectional notion. . . . English principally grammatically implements mood through the use of clause types or modal auxiliary verbs. For example, rather than say that speakers use indicative verb forms to make assertions, we will say that they typically use declarative sentences to do so."
(Bas Aarts, Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 2011)
Pronunciation: in-DIK-i-tiv mood