"if I was" vs "if I were" and some other stuff

Subjunctive verbs can be tricky, and the tone of the narrative containing one can make the correct verb feel wrong. In general, they sound pretty formal and may not fit the tone of what you’re writing. They’d be absolutely correct in academic or business writing.

When a verb
• indicates a wish (Examples: I wish I were home. She wished the store were open.)
• begins with if and expresses a condition that does not exist (Examples: If I were queen, you would bow. If we were any luckier, we'd be rich.)
• begins with as if or as though (Examples: She ran as if she were on fire. They bought stock as though investing were risk free.)
• begins with that and expresses a demand, request, requirement, or suggestion (Examples: The college requires that incoming student register in person. Lucille asks that Tom arrive early.)
that's subjunctive mood.

The present tense of subjunctive uses the base form of the verb. The past tense uses the indicative mood except for be, which uses were for all subjects, singular and plural.

Of course, you toss all that if it's dialogue by a character who wouldn't correctly use subjunctive, or it the narrator's voice is informal, casual, or any other that wouldn't use subjunctive.

Maryn, dimly remembering subjunctive from Latin, where she learned most of her English

ladyvincenza said:

We all conjugate the word "to be" as "I was," right? Then why do I often hear things like "If I were you..." Which is right? Are they both?

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Subjunctive mood. What Maryn said.

ladyvincenza said:

Also, I have questions on lots of little things. People seem to use "where" in places where (heh heh) I don't think it belongs, like: "This is the stage of photosynthesis where leaves get their color." I think it should be "when" or "in which," but "where" is how people really speak.

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I agree.

ladyvincenza said:

Similarly, I know you're not supposed to split infinitives: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." Problem is, it sounds better to split them. "He selfishly told me not to go with him" sounds better than "he told me selfishly to go with him." Or am I way off?

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The so-called rule about not splitting infinitives never was an authentic rule. A few pedantic a$$es tried to prescribe it because they thought English should be like Latin, and Latin infinitives are never split. The thing is, though, Latin infinitives can't be split; they're only one word. Besides, English isn't Latin. Don't worry about it

However, your example, "He selfishly told me not to go with him," doesn't have a split infinitive. The only infinitive in that sentence is "to go" and "selfishly" isn't between "to" and "go".

ladyvincenza said:

I also know you're not supposed to dangle participles (is that the word?), but there are times when you really have to, or else you would sound alien and ridiculous, like when Winston Churchill said, "that is the sort of language up with which I will not put!"

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You're thinking of dangling prepositions. That was the same pedantic a$$es mentioned above. Don't worry about those either.

A dangling modifier, which usually does involve participles, is something else altogether. That is a problem to watch out for. "Running up the stairs, his shoe fell off." Oh really? His shoe was running up the stairs? "Running up the stairs, he lost a shoe." Now he is the one doing the running.

Caveat: You occasionally run into people who swear by those misconceptions about split infinitives and dangling prepositions. If it happens to be the person who grades your papers at school or signs your paycheck at work, give them what they want while quietly savoring the satisfaction of knowing more than they do.

Bad guy: "What are you here for?"
Jack O'Neill: "You ended that sentence with a preposition...bastard."

Classic.

TheAntar said:

Bad guy: "What are you here for?"
Jack O'Neill: "You ended that sentence with a preposition...bastard."

Classic.

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Good one, Antar. Never ending a sentence in a preposition is another of the so-called rules FennelGiraffe mentioned, along with its "reason" that the bogus "rule" is modeled on Latin where the preposition always precedes the word. Of course, "What are you here for?" isn't bastardly bad.

However, ending sentences with useless, superfluous prepositions is:

"Where are you going to?" "She continued on," and " . . . go where no man has gone before" is just plain poor, too-wordy grammar.

Unless it's to make a characterization statement in dialogue, far better is the more streamlined "Where are you going?" "She continued," and " . . . go where no man has gone" (sorry, Gene).

Chase said:

Good one, Antar. Never ending a sentence in a preposition is another of the so-called rules FennelGiraffe mentioned, along with its "reason" that the bogus "rule" is modeled on Latin where the preposition always precedes the word. Of course, "What are you here for?" isn't bastardly bad.

However, ending sentences with useless, superfluous prepositions is:

"Where are you going to?" "She continued on," and " . . . go where no man has gone before" is just plain poor, too-wordy grammar.

Unless it's to make a characterization statement in dialogue, far better is the more streamlined "Where are you going?" "She continued," and " . . . go where no man has gone" (sorry, Gene).

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It's a line from Stargate. He was having a bad day, and that witty comment was the best he could do. lol...