I often see people say ‘hope this helps’ at the end of a communication, especially when they are trying to answer other people’s queries about computer problems.
It seems most people have already get accustomed to it, but it doesn’t mean that they are correct:
My english teacher pointed out that both "hope this helps’ and ‘hope this help’ are grammatically incorrect after she saw a classmate of mine writting the three words in his assignment, but she didn’t explain in detail why they are wrong.
So, could you help explain why both "hope this helps’ and ‘hope this help’
are grammatically incorrect please?
“Hope this help” is incorrect as ‘this’ is singular. The correct form in the plural (as far as I know) would be “Hope these help”.
I am unsure as to why “hope this helps” would be incorrect as I, myself, often use this phrase. Perhaps it is simply incorrect because it should be “I hope this helps”
‘Hope this helps’ is a contraction of: ‘I Hope that this (what I have just done/said) is going to help you’ and is perfectly acceptable. It is an expression I have used over the last 5 years on this site when I have given an answer to a contributor’s question.
I am also used to write “Hope this helps”. However, after some reasoning I find that it may be incorrect. The problem is that the verb “help” should be in the subjunctive form. Thus, the expression should be:
“Hope this help” or “I hope this help”
The subjunctive is justified since the fact that the help will be useful or not is unknown. I cannot prove that the help provided will really help the recipient. Thus, the subjunctive form is used instead of the present indicative.
Nevertheless, most people use the present indicative form instead of the subjunctive form. If you search through Google the expression “Hope this helps” it will draw about 9 million matches. While the expression “Hope this help” will draw about 600 thousand matches. Roughly, this shows how people prefer the present indicative form.
Google draws 1.5 million matches for “hope this will help” and 640 thousand matches for “I hope this will help”. So, it seems people are also using those expressions. We can fairly expect them to be valid too.
Your understanding of the subjunctive is faulty, Luis. ‘Hope’ is not a verb that takes the subjunctive in any situation, and the subjunctive is no longer a mood that we can ‘justify’; it merely remains in use in a few specific structures. Please review the mood in your grammar book or here:
When I said that the “verb” should take the subjunctive form, I was referring to the verb “help” not “hope”. If you say, “Hope this helps”, you are assuring that the help provided is helpful. Do we know it beforehand? No! That depends of a future condition / situation. Thus, we need to use the subjunctive form on the verb “help”. The right expression should be, then, “Hope this help”, “I hope this help”, “Hope these help”, or “I hope these help”.
Regarding the mood that the subjunctive form represents, we can read in the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary:
“Subjunctive = of, relating to, or constituting a verb form or set of verb forms that represents a denoted act or state not as fact but as contingent or possible…”
So, the application of the subjunctive form in the expression at hand is correct.
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You did not read the material I suggested, did you, Luis? A dictionary definition is wholly inadequate for understanding the subjunctive mood.
Future conditions do not determine the use of the subjunctive. It appears in certain set structures: in conditional sentences (Conditional 2), in clauses dependent on certain verbs (but ‘hope’ is not one of them-- which was my point vis a vis ‘hope’), and in certain other fixed or fossilized expressions (God save the Queen).
In short, it cannot be used in most sentences that suggest an unknown future-- since the future always remains unknown! You do not understand the use of the subjunctive, and I repeat: please read a bit about it from an on-line source such as the one I suggested HERE or HERE before you discuss this any further, either here on our forum or with others.
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I read the reference you suggested (bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html) and I still insist that the use of subjunctive mood in the expression “Hope this help” is correct…
First, in deed, the reference does not mention that a structure with “hope” can use the subjunctive mood. However, it does not exclude this possibility.
Second, the reference mentions the following: “the subjunctive mood, which is used chiefly to express the speaker’s attitude about the likelihood or factuality of a given situation.” Then it gives some examples to compare the usage of an indicative mood against the subjunctive mood. The indicative mood is used to express mainly certainty (an ongoing situation) as opposed to the subjunctive mood which expresses uncertainty. This is in line with the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary definition given before.
Third, the reference mentions that “(the subjunctive) also occurs in ‘that’ clauses used to state commands or to express intentions or necessity:” Remember that the expression “Hope this help” is a short for “I hope that this help”. We have a “that” clause! Thus, the use of subjunctive mood is applicable in the expression at hand.
Finally, the expression “Hope this helps” or “I hope that this helps” can be divided in two parts: “I hope” and “that this helps” (or simply “this helps”). If you analyze the latter part, you will find it is meaning that “this” is providing “help”, as a consequence of using the present-indicative form. But, if you say, “that this help” (using subjunctive mood) you will mean that “this” may provide “help”. The whole expression “I hope that this help” is mainly expressing a “wish” (also mentioned by the reference), not a fact! Thus, the use of the subjunctive mood is again justified.
Mister Micawber, I really do not want to take this discussion farther and I understand your point of view. The reality is that both expressions, “Hope this help” and “Hope this helps”, are used by people on the Web, being the second the most used.
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You have spent a lot of time defending a position that has no basis in the English language, Luis. It is not a ‘point of view’ I am promulgating; it is correct English, which yours (and that of the 270,000 clumsy typists, EFLs and illiterates on the internet-- compared to the 8.7 million who got it right) is not. You are coming from a language that preserves a full paradigm of subjunctive verb forms (including ‘to hope’-- ‘Espero que no llegues tarde’), but you are commiting the fallacy of applying those guidelines to English, which maintains only a fragmentary residue of the subjunctive mood and which is used in very limited applications.
I will leave you with a quote from Alexander Pope: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
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I would say that “hope” does take the subjunctive in the same way that “suggest” and “imagine” do.
For example: I imagine he be good at this sport; I suggest he be good in class today; I hope he be good at school today.
Luis’ argument is much more convincing since the dictionary definition of the subjunctive mood implies that hope does indeed take the subjunctive.
Just because more people use an expression doesn’t make it correct. More English speakers say “who” when they mean “whom” but “who” is still wrong when it is meant as an objective pronoun. For example more people would say “who were you talking to?” instead of the correct “to whom were you talking?”
Lastly, it’s worth comparing these two sentences:
“I know this is true.”
“I hope this be true.”
The first sentence is definite and whether “this” be true or not is not debatable since the subject (I) knows it.
The second sentence is not definite and “this” may or may not be true at all and it is therefore debatable since the subject (I) only hopes it be true.
“Think” also takes the subjunctive. A good example is from Hamlet Act 5, Scene 1: “I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in’t.”
There is also a hymn from 15th century England called “Abide, I hope it be the best.”
So to answer the original poster’s question it is “I hope this help” which is correct.
I’m afraid you are not correct in your references to the subjunctive. Referring to 16th and 15th century English really has no point in the 21st century.
The same rules in 15th and 16th century English can also be applied in today’s English. There really isn’t a lot of difference between 15th and 16th century English and today’s English. Thou et al has been replaced with you et al to use an example and I’m afraid the subjunctive does apply to “I hope this help” if the dictionary definition be used.
My examples were merely to point out that such uses of the subjunctive had occurred before in prose.
I disagree with that thought. Today’s English has developed over the last 500 years and it would be absurd to revert to the language of that period when you are using English today. If you went even further back to the English of Chaucer in the 14th century and used Chaucer’s English now, I fear you would not be understood at all.
English from the 15th and 16th centuries isn’t difficult for me to understand such as in the King James Bible and in Shakespeare. Besides, it’s beside the point: the examples I gave were given because of their uses of the subjunctive for think and for hope. The subjunctive mood is still used today such as with if, whether and many other examples.
If one were were to go even further back in time one would be speaking Old English which is a different language.
