Hello, Mr. Carillo!
I always read articles in the Lifestyle and Travel section of a major newspaper, and I often notice changes in the mood of the verb--indicative to imperative--even in the same paragraph.
For example, after a paragraph written in the indicative mood, the next paragraph of an article read:
"Don't forget the guyabano, we must eat plenty of them. Everyone has heard of [the] guyabano's medicinal properties...."
Aside from committing a comma-splice error, the writer changed the mood. Is it an error to shift from one mood to another when writing an article?
Thanks!
It's not necessarily an error to shift from one mood to another when writing a narrative or exposition. for instance, the quote you provided could very well be rendered as follows if the writer felt like it:
"Don't forget the guyabano! There's a need to eat plenty of them. Did you know that the guyabano has a lot of medicinal properties?"
In this version, the first sentence is in the imperative, the second in the indicative, and the third in the interrogative. The grammar of the statement is airtight despite the changes in mood.
In the original quote, however, I agree with you that that the first sentence is a comma splice--one that could have been avoided simply by using a semicolon to set off the two clauses, or by splitting the two clauses into two sentences, as follows:
"Don't forget the guyabano; we must eat plenty of them."
"Don't forget the guyabano. We must eat plenty of them."
I think what's more worrisome about the original quoted statement is that it mixes the person of its pronouns. In the first sentence, the subject of the first clause is actually the silent "you" (second person), but the subject of the second clause is "we," which is in the third person plural. Then the second sentence reverts to the stated second person "you." A more grammatically discerning writer would have rendered that statement as follows:
"Don't forget the guyabano;
you must eat plenty of them.
You must have heard of [the] guyabano's medicinal properties...."
This time, all three clauses in the sentence are in the second person (as I already pointed out, the pronoun "you" is silent in the first clause, "Don't forget the guyabano."
