Can a grammar wizard help me?

[pat]

When I write or speak, I keep finding myself saying "If I were..." or "If he were..." Intellectually, I keep thinking those should be "was", since the verb is singular. (Interestingly enough, I am less likely to use "were" if there is a noun rather than a pronoun in the sentence.)

I'm trying to figure out why I do this. Is there some sort of, I don't know, speculative verb tense?

Comments

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

No, it should be "if I were wealthy." Not because it's impossible, but because it's contrafactual as things stand now. "If I'm wealthy 50 years from now" is a real conditional. It could come to pass.

The past real conditional can be used in the past tense only in persons other than the first, or in cases of amnesia. This makes a neat contrast between the two moods. Real: "If I killed him, I don't remember it" says that it's possible that the speaker did kill whoever it was, but has no memory of it. Subjunctive: "If I had killed him, I wouldn't remember it" denies the possibility that the speaker killed him, and adds on that no memory would be there even if s/he had.

"If I put my keys on the couch, they're probably inside it somewhere." Searches in couch, doesn't find keys. "If I had put my keys on the couch, they'd be inside it; so I must have put them somewhere else." It's far from impossible or implausible to put the keys on the couch; it's simply contrafactual. But only after checking does it become so.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

Argh. Redundancy. Should read "The real conditional can be used in the past tense only..." Sorry for the inconvenience.