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"If I were" vs. "If I was" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7143 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes  Studies: Uzbek | Message 9 of 30 04 January 2010 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's clear from the above that native speakers have different views on what constitutes "correct" usage on the point raised; we haven't really gotten into different registers or written versus spoken standards in this discussion, nor indeed into a detailed examination of what criteria should be considered to determine "correctness". But I was struck by the statement above that "The most common form must be considered the "rule", the less common form the "accepted variant"."
This is true in a simple tautological sense, of course, if we define the "rule" as the most-used form, and then agree that this will be what determines "correct". But in a forum devoted to language learning, it seems to me that other criteria also come into play, especially with a language with long-established (but admittedly changing) written standards such as English. I confess that this approach, while reasonable and relatively common among, say, linguists seeking to determine the grammar of an unwritten or uncodified language, gives me pause when applied to English, wherein a simple "majority rule" approach seems to undermine the very nature of "correctness" in the commonly accepted sense. As an example to illustrate my unease, and to illustrate the problems this approach might cause, I tried to think of a simple grammatical form that almost all educated native speakers would consider "incorrect", but which might in fact be used more frequently than the standard form, and thought of "it don't" versus "it doesn't". Googling the two, I found that "it don't matter" indicates (somewhat) more hits than "it doesn't matter". This, I note, is in written English, which is primarily what shows up in Google searches; I suspect that the "it don't matter" variant is even more prevalent in speech. But should we really decide on this basis that "it don't matter", even if more broadly used, is "correct"? And what conclusions should we draw from this? Should we teach this form to foreign learners of English as acceptable, or accept it when our children not only use it in speaking but use it in writing as well? In other words, while not wanting to get into a prescriptivist versus descriptivist bash-fest, I think that accepting as "correct" forms that are generally seen as substandard, merely on the basis that they're (perhaps more) broadly used, vitiates the whole issue of "correctness" but, more importantly, does a disservice to those who seek guidance in order to speak/write in a manner generally seen as "correct". 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6134 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 30 04 January 2010 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think people sound illiterate and uneducated when they say "If I was you..." I grew up in the southern U.S. and it's a common southern uneducated error. But it is still an error, no matter how many times it's said incorrectly.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 11 of 30 04 January 2010 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Fair enough, Google has its limitations for this, but we should stop and ask ourselves why we get the results we're getting and do something to improve them.
Searching on Google.co.uk, I get "It doesn't matter" 30,800,000 "It don't matter" But just by looking at the results page I can immediately see that most of the results for the latter is lyric pages. What happens if we add -lyrics? "It doesn't matter" -lyrics 28,800,000 "It don't matter" -lyrics 938,000
You have just hit the nail squarely on the head. I once read a piece by someone making fun of the UK newspapers with prescriptive grammar guides. The author talked about a particular editorial opinion column in the Mail that lamented several common "errors" in English -- he then went on to look through the rest of that issue of the newspaper itself and found that these all the other journalists committed the exact same "errors", and that the editor hadn't noticed these as "errors" when he read over them.... Edited by OldAccountBroke on 04 January 2010 at 8:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| novemberain Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5843 days ago 59 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC1, Italian Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 12 of 30 04 January 2010 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just submitted this as a question to
Grammar Girl podcast, lets see if it will make it into upcoming episodes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6134 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 30 04 January 2010 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
Hahahahah :) Yes, I've heard that one before. I'm from Texas with family from Arkansas and Alabama. Although, my step-mom is from Indiana and I've heard a fair bit of subject-verb agreement problems come out of her mouth! :) -Z 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 15 of 30 05 January 2010 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the language to be spoken correctly. Between you and I is a good example. I don't care how common the mistake is, it just doesn't sound right and it is incorrect.
If I were you is correct and sounds right. If I was you is incorrect and doesn't sound right to me. The problem seems to be that grammar is no longer taught in English speaking countries. That puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to learning foreign grammar. I must be different but I have loved playing with language all my life. I like to know why things are as they are. I like playing with words. On the other hand, whom did you see is correct but who did you see is more natural. It is I is correct but everyone says, it is me or, it's me. You would never say, it's I. Edited by fanatic on 05 January 2010 at 1:25am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6033 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 16 of 30 05 January 2010 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have heard things like "You was ...", "We was ..." form native speakers in the north of England. The decline of the subjunctive pales in comparison.
By the way, "If I were you" is a fixed expression so even people who tend to use "was" for a hypothetical past, will keep the "were" in this case; Or most people anyway... Edited by Sennin on 05 January 2010 at 12:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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