Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz
THE "WAS" SHOULD BE "WERE" LIKE YOU HAD IT BEFORE. SOMEONE WHOSE ENGLISH IS NOT TOP NOTCH "CORRECTED" IT.
I just put that in all caps and bold so you would see it.
You created a conditional ("If he were fine"), so you are supposed to use the subjunctive mood of "to be," not the indicative mood. The subjunctive is "were" always, no matter the plurality of the subject.
If I were a rich man, I would buy a car.
If I were tall, I would play basketball.
These two are correct.
If I was a rich man <-- sounds weird and wrong to an educated speaker
Lately, uneducated people have confused the was/were in English when using the subjunctive mood. It is sort of like how in Japanese young people write like this:
私わ学生だ。
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Agreed. Although the reasoning I use is the statement refers to a completed action in the past, so no changes can be made. Therefore, any discussion is hypothetical so the action or state of being should be stated as a past action.
I know the response wasn't to anything I wrote, I just wanted to restate the concepts in the way I think of them.