The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161176   Message #3830366
Posted By: Richard Mellish
04-Jan-17 - 09:23 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Died for Love: Sources and variants
Subject: RE: Origins: Died for Love: Sources and variants
Pedant mode on.

Richie quoted "If my love leave [sic] me, what shall I do?", presumably inserting the "sic" because it's "leave" rather than "leaves".

There is nothing wrong with "leave" in that context, but it is subjunctive, a verb mood which is slowly dying out in English. We can speculate about which the navvy from whom B-G collected that version actually sang.