Is it ever correct to say "if I be..." in present-day English?
We are taught that in "type 0" and "type 1" conditional sentences, the tense of the condition clause (aka the "if" clause) should always be the normal present tense, as in:
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"Type 0" conditional: If you heat ice, it melts.
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"Type 1" conditional: If he wins the lottery, he will spend it all on charity.
As with any other verb, when using the verb be in this position, its inflectional form must agree with its subject, as in:
- If he is smart, he will pass the tests.
However, is in the aforementioned sentence implies if the person is smart in general, not in one specific situation.
Does this distinction matter in English? If the latter were to be the case, meaning in a specific instance not something stated as a general truth, would it then be possible to use the pattern "If I be ...." instead of "If I am ...."?
For example:
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Son: Please buy me a bicycle, Dad.
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Dad: I will, but only if you be a good boy. [rather than "if you are ...."]
Does anyone ever speak or write that way today? If so, in what spoken or written contexts? If not, then have they ever once customarily done so at any other time or place than here and now?
Solution 1:
In British English, this is an archaic form. It uses the subjunctive. You will see the past subjunctive more often, e.g. "If I were a rich man..." https://genius.com/Jerry-bock-if-i-were-a-rich-man-lyrics
If you click on this link - https://bit.ly/2Nwo0Kt - you will see the live graph from which I took the image below. You will be able to click on links at the bottom of that page to see actual examples.
I don't know about American English. They use the subjunctive more than the British.
This Google nGram shows how the usage has declined
https://bit.ly/2Nwo0Kt
Solution 2:
It is archaic. You will find it in books written up around 1900, but any use of it since then is either dialect, or deliberate archaism. 