“She insists that he take the dog for a walk.” is one of the few remaining cases in English where the subjunctive is used instead of the indicative.

The subjunctive is an old carry-over from Germanic times. It used to be very widely used in medieval English, but was slowly replaced by auxiliaries like “would”, “might”, “could” etc.

English also used to be inflected. Today pretty much no inflections remain, which means that the subjunctive looks the same as the infinitive, the 1/2 person singular, etc.

The subjunctive tense is only used in hypothetical/unrealised sorts of situations, like the one above. The insisting is stated as fact (hence, it doesn’t say “She instist”), but the thing being insisted isn’t actual, so is instead stated subjuctively:

“She insists (indicative) that he take (subjunctive) the dog for a walk.”

Compare this with a sentence where the subordinate (second) clause doesn’t introduce something unrealised:

“She likes that he takes the dog walking.”

All of this seems to depend on some kind of learning that we’ve all done without ever realising it. Replace ‘insists’ with ‘implores’, ‘demands’, ‘requests’ then it can only rightly be subjunctive. Replace it with ‘considers’, ‘knows’, ‘sees’, ‘remembers’ then it can only be subjunctive.

It gets even weirder though if you make it “she wishes” …

Overall, this is proof that its better not to know at all, and just to follow your instinct, because knowing all this stuff doesn’t make it the least bit more intelligible.

Totally agree :-)

I did come to the conclusion that ‘takes’ will not be used in first person singular & plural or in third person plural.

I think it’s about the tense and the subject but you should take the s off if the sentence still holds up without it.

“She insists that he dances” only reads like she’s convincing someone that this guy ‘does’ dancing, like he goes to a salsa class or jumps around the lounge each night listening to metal, it wouldn’t be a comment on the future or strictly in the past or a multiple because those wouldn’t need an s.

I take the s off words.
Francis takes the s off words.
- Regularly or as we’re watching (actively).

Francis never used to take the s off his words (implies that you’ve changed your behaviour now, instead of ‘never took’ which wouldn’t be so hopeful.)

So I wonder if Dances with Wolves was about someone who regularly danced with wolves or a few dances that were attended by wolves?