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When should I use the subjunctive mood?

2 examples first:

1.It is announced that the accounting class of the 3rd and 4th hours on the morning of this Wednesday be cancelled

2.It is expected that everybody and each household be on guard

Someone told me this kind of examples above appears in the textbook as strict sentences to be taught in the classroom, so is that right for the usage of be

Meantime I looked up the word be at thefreedictionary.com and found one piece of interpretation says that way:

Archaic Used with the past participle of certain intransitive verbs to form the perfect tense: "Where be those roses gone which sweetened so our eyes?" (Philip Sidney).

So is there any connection between the archaic usage & the examples above? BTW, how to understand the short phrase "the 3rd and 4th hours". Many thanks!

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    Welcome to ELU. Your examples exhibit the mandative subjunctive. It is also treated in this question. It is used very little outside of US formal writing (although the essay at this link observes that it "has made a considerable comeback in British English in recent years, probably under American influence.") "Hour" in this context probably means "class period". – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 11:58
  • @StoneyB: I have to disagree. It is reasonably common in U.S. speech, as well. For example, I don't think I expect to hear "I recommend that he goes to a specialist" from an educated American. (Although I probably wouldn't notice it if I did, so maybe I'm wrong about this.) – Peter Shor Nov 03 '12 at 12:12
  • @PeterShor Highly educated speakers use it, but I think it's been mostly replaced by constructions with would and should in ordinary speech. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 12:15
  • FWIW, British courts in formal situations sometimes order that the lease be and it hereby is cancelled. I'm not enormously keen on the construction, but they continue to use it even so. – Tim Lymington Nov 03 '12 at 12:30
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    @StoneyB I cannot find the mandation in sentence 1, if it is merely "announced" that classes are cancelled. Would it not be usual for the verb to be something like "required" or at least "declared" to make the final "be" appropriate. As written the first sentence looks to be somewhat tortured syntax by a non-native speaker. – Fortiter Nov 03 '12 at 12:35
  • I agree, except that the torture might equally have been perpetrated by a native speaker swimming in linguistic waters over his head. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 12:43
  • @TimLymington You I'm sure are more aware than most of how conservative legal usage is, and why. The guiding principle is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". See the protracted discussion here. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 12:45
  • @StoneyB: I think that discussion is distorted by the fact that it involves the, to me "unusual", usages of necessary and proper. OP's examples here seem much more related to this earlier question. FWIW, I find #1 above positively toe-curling, but #2 is interesting - it calls to mind the difference between "I expect you to be* honest"* and "I expect you are* honest"*. – FumbleFingers Nov 03 '12 at 13:09
  • @FumbleFingers 1) My point in the Hume discussion, though, was that it was 18th century legal use which has survived into the 20th century. 2) Compare your examples to a mandative subjunctive: I recommend that you be* honest, and a (now obsolete) conditional subjunctive: Oph: What means your lordship? Ham: That if you be* honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 13:22
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    And the example from the Free Dictionary seems to not to be in the subjunctive at all. I'd say it's an archaic use of be for the indicative, as is "What fools these mortals be", from Shakespeare, combined with the use of be instead of have as an auxiliary verb for the motion verb to go (so two different archaic usages). – Peter Shor Nov 03 '12 at 13:26
  • To expand on my previous comment, I am, thou art, he is, we are or be, ye are or be, they are or be. So to answer your question, there's not much connection. – Peter Shor Nov 03 '12 at 14:07
  • @StoneyB: I'm not well up on C18 legal usage, but sticking to current usage, I think I'm with Peter Shor, in that I don't see the mandative subjunctive as particularly unusual (yet!). But I'm also with Fortiter, in that I don't see sufficient "mandation" in a verb like announced to make #1 work for me *today*. – FumbleFingers Nov 03 '12 at 14:09
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    The first example comes from what appears to be a Chinese ESL website, and contains several phrases that a native speaker of English would be highly unlikely to say. *"It is announced that the accounting class of the 3rd and 4th hours on the morning of this Wednesday be cancelled. Further notice will be made for its makeup."* – Peter Shor Nov 03 '12 at 14:12
  • "In the early-to-mid 20th century, it was imagined that the English subjunctive was reaching the end of its long road of decline. But for the later 20th century, the four corpora show a fascinating picture: whereas a gradual decline of the mandative subjunctive seems to continue in AmE, it has seen a modest revival, from a very low ebb, in British English – apparently under the influence of American English, where this form shows greater currency." Source – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 03 '12 at 14:21

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To summarize the results in the comments:

Sentence 1 exhibits an improper use of the subjunctive be in a clause complementing announced. It should be replaced with an ordinary indicative.

Sentence 2 exhibits an ordinary use of the mandative subjunctive, which is experiencing a comeback in BE, possibly under the influence of AE formal use. It is often replaced with a construction using should.

The quotation from Sidney exhibits a different, non-subjunctive use of be; it is obsolete and not productive in contemporary written or spoken English.

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