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Subjunctive "If I were you" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| 98789 Diglot Groupie Colombia Joined 4853 days ago 48 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English | Message 17 of 39 20 July 2012 at 2:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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I guess you're right. So, I think the word subjunctive goes further than I thought.
Probably adding "usted" will solve it: Si yo era usted = wrong Si yo fuera usted = right (ok, strictly talking, the first one could be right, but in very specific/uncommon conditions) off course I know you can use "si yo era" ("era" is the singular first person past conjugation of "ser"). It was my fault not to properly clarify it, sorry. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4478 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 18 of 39 20 July 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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''If I was a rich girl...'' (Gwen Stefani)
''What if God was one of us...'' (Joan Osbourne) ''If I was you'' (Pet Shop Boys)... I don't know why IF I WAS YOU is objected to, while IT'S ME or WHO DID YOU SEE? are not. Double standards! In the UK ''If I was you'' is a part of the colloquial language, just like IT'S ME and WHO DID YOU SEE?. Edited by Medulin on 20 July 2012 at 4:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6966 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 19 of 39 20 July 2012 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've actually avoided using "it's me" for some time and instead say "It's Chung" when someone asks me "who is it?" but can't see me. All of that Eastern European influence probably did it for me. Cf. Slovak: Kto je to? - To som ja, Chung!. French was no help (being my other fluent language) as a model since they say c'est moi! rather than *c'est je!. Regarding "whom" and "who"...
I try to be consistent. That's the best that I can do. You are right though that it's common in colloquial English (not to mention even journalistic English) to say "If I was...". I remember Cainntear stubbornly adhering to "if I was..." even after someone posted that he should (could?) have used "if I were...". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4360 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 20 of 39 20 July 2012 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's true that all three are incorrect, but (at least in the US) "If I was you" sounds worse than "It's me" or "Who did you see?" There are many more people that would say the latter 2 than would say the former. It's not a matter of a double standard, just a matter of the norms of the spoken language: some grammatical errors seem more egregious than others, simply because they are less common. Anyway, neither of those phrases were being discussed in this thread, so I don't know how you got the idea that a double standard was being displayed. I remember that when that Joan Osborne song was a hit, everyone was making fun of her for that line. And Gwen Stefani? Please, she's barely literate. I'd say pop lyrics in general are misleading as a mirror for the standard spoken language, as it has long been considered cool for them to be slangy and grammatically incorrect. I think it's wise for non-native speakers of a language to try to adhere to its grammatical rules a bit more rigidly than many native speakers do, in order to avoid the confusion likely to result from trying to figure out which errors are common, which ones give the impression of extreme ignorance, and which are a result of interference from their L1. Edited by Gala on 20 July 2012 at 8:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5342 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 39 20 July 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
If your grammar book calls any of these three "incorrect", you might want to look for a better grammar book. All three of these expressions are widely used by educated English speakers. You could claim that that some of them are informal. But "incorrect" is a bit strong. It's me. According to Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage (MWCDEU), expressions like "T'was I" and "T'is she" were extremely common in stage dialog in the latter half of the 1600s. In the 1700s, most grammarians still came down on in favor of "I". (But then again, many English-language grammarians of that period were incompetent charlatans playing on the class anxieties of upwardly-mobile book buyers.) But by the latter half the 20th century, most grammarians appear to agree that both forms are perfectly acceptable, and you should decide between them based on style. The MWCDEU even has a nice citation of Winston Churchill saying, "This is me, Winston Churchill…" from 1946. If it's OK for Churchill, it's probably OK for most students of English. At least in my dialect (northeastern US), responding to "Who's there?" with "It is I" makes you sound like a British butler in a black-and-white movie. Who did you see? MWCDEU has a long list of examples from Shakespeare dating from 1595 to 1605. The Bard uses both "who" and "whom" as the object of verbs. Again, the grammarians got all worked up in the 1700s, but they didn't change much. Further citations show that modern writers continue to use both "who" and "whom" as the spirit moves them. Interesting, "whom" is in no danger of dying out. Again, if "who" is good enough for Shakespeare (and for Noah Webster), then it's good enough for me. (There's an interesting aside in MWCDEU about nominative "whom"(!), which is a really weird and long-standing phenomenon in certain kinds of relative clauses.) If I was you Personally, I prefer "were" here. But MWCDEU has citations of "was" from Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron, Robert Frost and Henry Adams. All three of these expressions have been used for hundreds of years, in both England and the US. They've all been used by writers of indisputable authority. So on the one side, we've got some 18th century grammarians and a bunch of introductory textbooks written by committees. On the other side, we've got Churchill, Shakespeare, Noah Webster, Lord Byron and Robert Frost, all of whom used these allegedly "incorrect" expressions. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5593 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 22 of 39 20 July 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Can't resist adding my opinions to those above!
As I said above the difference between "if I were" and "if I was" feels to me like one of register, but personally I strongly prefer "if I were you" to "if I was you" as it feels to me like a set-phrase. I guess what we have here is a case of language in transition, I suspect the subjunctive form will die out eventually (except in set- phrases). Who(m) did you see? This native speaker's opinion is that both are correct in the written language, but I can't imagine using "whom" in the spoken language (except humorously)- mainly because I don't like being despised as stuck-up. It's me/I. Sorry, but I can't imagine using "it is I" even in writing (except ironically- and even here I'd go the whole hog and say "'tis I"). In the UK, working class people would think you a bit stuck up for using whom, but they'd think you bizarre (possibly even not quite sane) for using "it is I"! That said, if one thing could convince me to start using the "it is I" structure it's what emk said above (that Churchill used "it is me")! I rather like Chung's compromise and could quite happily say, "it's Martin". So for what it's worth my opinion is: "If I was/were": transitional phase- both forms acceptable but with an appreciable difference in register. "Who(m) did you see?": Still transitional in writing (both forms acceptable, again with a difference in degree of formality) but "whom" is dead in most spoken dialects of UK English. "It's me/ I": My opinion is that "it is I" is dead- at least in the UK. It's all about opinions :-) Gwen Stefani: barely literate seems a little harsh, but.... link Edited by Random review on 20 July 2012 at 11:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4360 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 23 of 39 21 July 2012 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I consulted no grammar book, as I don’t own an English one; I trust my ear. I believed
all of those 3 phrases to be technically incorrect because that is what I was taught in school. Maybe I was wrong, but that was not the point of my post. The point was not (as you seem to think) to prescriptively condemn all of those phrases as incorrect, but rather to disagree with Medulin’s contention that “If I was you” is as “normal” and accepted in spoken English as “It’s me” or “Who did you see?” I often hear and always have heard phrases like the latter 2 (and I use them myself), but I don’t often hear “If I was you.” When I do, it sounds wrong. People that say it also tend to be generally poorly-spoken. Have you read this whole thread? It began with a non-native English speaker reporting that he had been corrected by another non-native speaker for saying “If I were you;” he was told that it was wrong and that “If I was you” was correct. Many posters, including myself, pointed out that not only is the former technically correct, but that it is not even standard usage to say the latter. Someone wrote something to the effect that this phrase is one of the few instances in which most native English speakers will instinctively and correctly use the subjunctive. I still agree absolutely, and the fact that Jonathan Swift once wrote it otherwise means nothing to me. Not many people speak like Jonathan Swift wrote. I never had any quibble with the other 2 phrases; I thought they were grammatically incorrect, but that’s never stopped me from using them. Like both you and Random Review, I’d never say “It is I.” I do however find it odd that your usage guide holds up all those examples from non- contemporary and even archaic writers of fiction and poetry. Even contemporary writings of this sort wouldn’t seem to me to be the most appropriate examples of usage, as there is a tendency for them to do all sorts of non-standard things with the language in the interest of a colorful or original narrative voice. But to compound this tendency with using centuries-old material really baffles me….especially that they cite Shakespeare! English has changed a lot since the Elizabethan era, to put it mildly. I think you need to look for a better usage book. Edited by Gala on 21 July 2012 at 1:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5593 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 24 of 39 21 July 2012 at 2:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Could there be a difference between UK and US English here? In the UK well-spoken, educated speakers use the non-subjunctive structure all the time in the spoken language and in informal writing. As far as the spoken language is concerned it is not confined to the uneducated. Formal written UK English is another matter, of course. Thus I doubt you'll find "if I was you" in an article in 'The Guardian'; but even a quick google search will reveal many examples of educated speakers writing "if I was you" in the comments pages of the online version. As I've often said on this forum (sorry to keep repeating) my personal opinion (which I know is far from universally shared here) is that to know whether something is correct you have to ask the people who use the language whether they think it is correct (in that particular social context). By that criterion "if I was you" is correct in spoken UK English but incorrect in very formal writing (and to judge by what Gala has written, also incorrect in spoken US English). I think it's fair to say that "if I were you" is always correct, though it may make you sound a bit pompous in some circles in the UK. Personally I think it sounds nicer too. Edited by Random review on 21 July 2012 at 2:11am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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