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IF I WAS/IF I WERE |
The subjunctive mood, always weak in English, has been dwindling away
for centuries until it has almost vanished. According to traditional
thought, statements about the conditional future such as “If I were a
carpenter . . .” require the subjunctive “were,” but “was” is certainly
much more common. Still, if you want to impress those in the know with
your usage, use “were” when writing of something hypothetical, unlikely, or contrary to fact.
The same goes for other pronouns: “you,” “she,”
“he,” and “it.” In the case of the plural pronouns “we” and “they” the
form “was” is definitely nonstandard, of course, because it is a
singular form.
