Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Do you wish you were a rich girl? donna grammar Wow, did I learn something new today. I had always thought that you was was with a singular noun and were with a plural noun. Now I know that were is an appropriate verb when writing about things that are not true, http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=19921#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=19921#Comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:50:44 GMT Rob grammar Sorry about the formatting of that last comment. How do you insert a hard return? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=17514#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=17514#Comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:03:20 GMT Rob grammar I realize this is a very old post, and if someone has already addressed this, I apologize (there are a lot of comments to read), but I am pretty sure there is a mistake in the original post. I'm going to avoid talking about the subjunctive mood. This entry is really about the conditional. We do sometimes invoke the subjunctive in conditional sentences, but that doesn't seem to be the main focus of the topic. More importantly, proper usage can be understood without getting into all that. The important distinction to be made for the purpose of this topic is between the factual conditional and the hypothetical conditional. I'll explain: Like Nick, I was at first confused by this example: There was a storm in Mexico. If Richard was in Cabo, he could have missed the call. However, once I realized that we are talking about a real situation that we don't know all the facts about, I understood that you are using the past factual conditional. The next example, however, is entirely contrary to what I was taught and what I teach my students: If Bill was to come over for coffee (as he does every Sunday), we would talk about football. This is simply incorrect English. It's a mistake that we all commonly use in spoken English, but in formal English, it's wrong. There are two or three correct ways to phrase the sentence, but this isn't one of them. If we believe that there really is a possibility that Bill may come over, we use the factual conditional: If Bill comes over... If, on the other hand, it seems unlikely that Bill will come over, then we may use the hypothetical conditional: If Bill came over.../If Bill were to come over... [no difference in meaning between these two.] Those are the only two options as far as I know. In general, the verb in the If clause (protasis) takes the form of the simple past if the situation is seen by the speaker as purely hypothetical. The main verb takes the the simple present if it is seen as a genuine possibility. The confusion comes in when the main verb of the If clause is a Be verb. For whatever reason, whenever the verb is Be and the situation is hypothetical, the verb becomes "were." Because of this irregularity, it's become common to use "if I was..." and "if he was" simply because it's more in keeping with the general rule. But this is not a distinct mood with its own meaning. It's a corruption of the hypothetical conditional. Just one more example to clarify. My friend and I play the lottery. We like to imagine what we will/would spend our winnings on. We are both discussing the same situation, but our perspectives can affect the way we speak about this situation. I am a pessimist when it comes to the lottery; I know how unlikely it is that I will hit the jackpot, so to me this is a purely imaginary situation. I speak in the hypothetical conditional: If I WERE to win, I WOULD buy a Lexus. or If I WON, I WOULD buy a Lexus. My friend, on the other hand, is a real optimist; she genuinely believes she has a shot at winning. She uses the factual conditional: If I WIN, I WILL buy a Rolls-Royce. Notice that the difference is not only in the If clause, but also in the Then clause (apodosis). The hypothetical conditional uses "would," whereas the factual conditional uses "will." Using "If I WAS to win..." would not create a new meaning. The sentence is still in the hypothetical conditional. It's just informal English. I hope this is clear and correct. I'm not a linguist, but I teach this quite often and am pretty confident that I've got it right. The subjunctive mood is a-whole-nother story. While it is important to most of the romance languages, it's not really imperative that your average English speaker learn it. ;) http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=17513#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=17513#Comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:00:15 GMT Kristine grammar Question: Our church is starting a new series called "Imagine." Last Sunday, the phrase was "Imagine if no one was hungry." Was that correct, or should it have been "Imagine if no one were hungry." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16678#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16678#Comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:57:17 GMT liana grammar I would have to agree with Nick. That was the way I was tought as well. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16316#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16316#Comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:38:32 GMT Nick grammar ...except, of course, that that probably should have read, "...and the speaker were saying how lucky that was." I can definitely sympathize with the students of the E.S.L. teacher who posted earlier. It is sometimes quite a tricky language. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16120#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16120#Comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:01:04 GMT Nick grammar (I realize this blog entry is ancient, but it still seems to have an active comment section, so I'm going to post anyway. It seems like the post has inspired a similar heatedness in the prior posters.) When, in the article, you gave the example, "There was a storm in Mexico. If Richard was in Cabo, he could have missed the call," it took me a minute to figure out that the context was someone trying to explain Richard's failure to respond to the call. Rather, I was struck that in this case, "was" didn't seem like the proper alternative. Since the statement is in the past tense, I thought the counterfactual would be not the past subjunctive, but the pluperfect subjunctive. That is, if Richard had already responded to the call, and the speaker was commenting on how lucky that was, the sentence would become, "There was a storm in Mexico. If Richard *had been* in Cabo, he could have missed the call." (You have my apologies for nesting that example in a sentence which took the same form. I don't like to beg the question, but then, I'm expressing this because it's how I was taught to speak, so it's to be expected.) http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16119#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16119#Comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:55:54 GMT linda grammar Just wanted you to know i loved your book and it really helped me to learn stuff. I've recommended it to people with brain damage(suffered some from a car accident) and for those learning english as students and children. I wish I had lots of money, so I could have a nice place to live, a decent car to drive and be able to travel and write about my adventures. That would be fun! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16061#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16061#Comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:45:40 GMT susana garcia grammar I think that the Grammar girl today is interesting because I had never paid attention to how I have said words or sentences but now that i read Grammar girl i realize that I say that so many times. Example 1: If I was a teacher i would let students listen to ipods during class. Example 2: If my mom could change the world she would have studied. Susana Garcia period 6 http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16046#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16046#Comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:48:01 GMT Steve grammar Daniel hit the nail on the head. It's correct to say "if I was" if you're talking about something that actually might have happened in the past. For instance: "If I was calling my crush (when you and I ran into each other yesterday), then I certainly don’t remember it." But: "If I were calling my crush (right now), I would be embarrassed." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16028#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx?commentid=16028#Comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:17:38 GMT Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:50:44 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us