I wish I was/were there

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Anonymous

#503167 Mon, 21 Apr 08 02:17 AM

Were it not for the demise of grammar!

"I were" is PAST tense SUBJUNCTIVE mood.

"I was" is PAST tense INDICATIVE mood.

The subjunctive is used to express a counterfactual statement, a possibility, or express a wish. Therefore, "I wish I were there" is grammatically correct, in this context.

"I was there" is used to express past tense, such as "I was there at the correct time".

The subjunctive reply might be "If that were true, I would have seen you".

Or, consider the following more appropriate subjunctive than indicative moods;

So be it. (imperative = It is)

Anonymous

Tenses, Grammar, Past tenses, Subjunctives

MrPedantic

#503583 Mon, 21 Apr 08 11:01 PM

I'm not so sure, Anon. I find that BrE speakers often use a counterfactual "was" in practical contexts, or contexts where the possibility is "closed", and a counterfactual "were" in more speculative or "open" contexts.

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (11,852)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Anonymous

#509546 Sun, 04 May 08 10:50 PM

Look at the result from the post of
ranchhand #110197 Sat, 18 Jun 05 04:35 AM

Googled: Results 1 - 10 of about 5,060,000 English pages for "if I were".
Googled: Results 1 - 10 of about 3,560,000 English pages for "if I was".

This is the result from today
Results 1 - 10 of about 3,100,000 for "if I was"
Results 1 - 10 of about 25,400,000 for "if I were"

I belive this changes in the result is because there are many high skilled paid writer (not like me :) ) write in blogs, wordpress, and many publishing websites.

When you see a mirror, dont forget to smile :)
Lior

Anonymous

MrPedantic

#510085 Mon, 05 May 08 11:01 PM

I'm afraid those numbers are a little misleading, Anon. If you go to the last returnable page for "If I were", you'll see this message:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 955 already displayed.

Similarly, for "if I was":

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 921 already displayed.

Which in google means "those 25m / 3m examples are mostly duplicates or near-duplicates".

Moreover, the search doesn't allow us to distinguish between pseudo-subjunctive uses of "if I was" (If I was you, I'd buy a new car) and indicative uses (If I was rude, I apologise). In the latter case, it isn't possible to substitute "if I were".

Best wishes,

MrP

MrPedantic

Subjunctives, Numbers

Anonymous

#510175 Tue, 06 May 08 04:17 AM

I wish I were there.

Anonymous

#511875 Sat, 10 May 08 02:29 AM

i wish i were there

Anonymous

#533122 Thu, 26 Jun 08 11:46 PM

I wish I WERE there.

Anonymous

CalifJim

#536799 Fri, 04 Jul 08 10:26 PM

I wish I was here!

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (16,003)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

Anonymous

#542891 Fri, 18 Jul 08 03:36 AM

The story of a recent soccer game between the New England Revolution and the Tampa Bay Mutiny was buried near the back of the newspaper's sports section, and there was certainly no television coverage."

Anonymous

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