Notes & Asides.(Australia's gun policy; grammar errors)

-- Dear Mr. Buckley: I never thought I'd catch you in a grammatical error, but you made one (or at least agreed with one) in your reply to Mr. Horst Brakel a few months ago.

Mr. Brakel disagreed with a correspondent who claimed that "if I were" is used in the present tense and "if I was" is used in the past tense, and claimed that the past tense of "if I were" is "if I had been."

Both correspondents were partly wrong and partly right. What Mr. Brakel (and you) missed was that many languages have what is called "mood."

In his example "if I were king" Mr. Brakel is using the correct present tense, subjunctive mood, indicating that the verb is contrary to fact. But he also says that "if I was" is never correct. If so, how would he write the following sentence? "If I was too argumentative yesterday, I apologize." The first part of this sentence is in the past tense, indicative mood, meaning that it is not presumed to be contrary to fact.

The past tense of "if I were" is indeed "if I had been." So far, so good. Now let's look at that sentence about the argument: "If I am too argumentative" is present tense, indicative mood. "If I was too argumentative" is past tense, indicative mood. But what about "If I had been too argumentative"? Aha! We are back into past tense, subjunctive mood, and I am implying that I was not too argumentative.

My bet is that your gut tells you that what I am saying is precisely what you learned to say, and instinctively would say, having been brought up in a family that spoke excellent English. It is also what my mother (a high-school English and Spanish teacher) and my sixth-grade English teacher confirmed over 50 years ago.

Regards,