Grammar Nazi tip of the day
As the great Walter Sobchak once said, "are there no rules??!!"
If you are speaking about a hypothetical situation, you should use "if I were," not "if I was." This is called the subjunctive mood. For example: "If I were you I wouldn't neg-bang me just for passing along a helpful tip, though you probably will anyway."
There is a tricky distinction made in certain situations where "if I was" is correct, which is discussed at http://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/Which-is-correct-if-I-was-or-if-I-we…. You use "if I was" when the statement is indicative about the past rather than hypothetical. For example: "If I was rude in offering my advice, then I will gladly accept your neg-bang." That statement isn't hypothetical, it is indicative.
Take care, and may you never split your infinitive.
-Biakabatookus
If I was a smarter man I would have some awesome comment here berating you for your grammar Nazi skills. Hoeva I is no reel smart.
But I'd suggest he corrects his first example sentence to "If I were you..."
EDIT: Makes sense now.
I am me.
..."If you were you I wouldn't neg-bang me just for passing along a helpful tip, though you probably will anyway."
be:
"If I were you, I wouldn't neg-bang me just for passing along a helpful tip, though you probably will anyway."?
I think that in your example, "you" is "you", so that's not hypothetical and therefore not fitting for the subjunctive mood of the verb, to be.
Yes, that was a typo. I suppose it's fitting that I make a mistake like that when trying to give advice. I fixed it.
Also, shouldn't there be another comma after "though"?
I love the grammar nazi. I've gotten so bad at it that I recently bought a cd of one of my favorite bands, and I can't listen to it anymore after hearing track 4. The singer starts off, "I've gone days without food, I've went weeks without sleep", so now I wasted 10 bucks.
Yost loves me as well....it's my son's name.... his pict is on my avatar, going to his first M game ever vs ND...in 2007. That was an enjoyable game.....
My wife would not allow me to name our son Fielding or Woodson. He is 3 months old. I am sacrificing my season tickets so I can watch the games with him. I want to make sure I'm there during his infancy as a M fan, to make sure to guide him properly.
"If you were you I wouldn't neg-bang me just for passing along a helpful tip, though you probably will anyway."
Don't you mean "if I were you"? I'm pretty sure I am me. Unless....
You are correct about "if I were/was", but as I fellow grammar freak I must note that there actually is no problem with splitting infinitives.
Tell that to my History professor a few years back who circled every instance.
A college professor should know better than that. The "don't split infinitives" thing was a weird 19th-century fad by people who wanted to make English as structurally close to Latin as possible. (In Latin, the infinitive is a single word, so it's literally impossible to split it.) For some reason, generations of grade-school English teachers in this country have wrongly taken that fad (which has long since died) to be some kind of a rule, and they have stifled student creativity in the process.
I'd love to hear someone try to claim that "To boldly go where no one has gone before" is grammatically incorrect.
If I were a Grammar Nazi, I'd proofread my posts.
Yes. I have no defense. +1
I was just giving you a hard time. The problem with criticizing someone's writing is that you will get harrassed for any mistakes.
hypothetically in the past?
Like:
If I was smart enough, I wouldn't have clicked on this post?
I couldn't care less about this thread.
I would refer to myself as the Grammar Bitch. No one likes a Nazi- they are inglorious bastards!
who, by the way, were the Nazi hunters in the film, no?
Cue Brad Pitt: "Y'all will get me 100 Grammar Nazi scalps taken from the heads of 100 dead Grammar Nazis ..."
...perforce perjorative. Recommend MGoGrammarian instead.
learning spanish helps with all of this. in high school, i learned more about subjunctive vs imperative, tenses, and objects in my spanish classes than i ever did in english. our english classes were more about discussing literature (with discussion topics stolen by the teacher from sparknotes) and making crappy movies and dioramas than, you know, learning english.
seriously, if you ever want properly learn english grammar, learn a foreign language.
You lost credibility as a grammar nazi with the split infinitive claim. Plus, applying the was/were or other picayune grammar rules to message board conversation is a little self-serving. It's the low hanging fruit approach to feeling smarter than others, and, thus, less convincing.
I wasn't passing along this advice to feel smarter than anyone. I was passing it along because I see the subjunctive misused all the time, which makes me think that the rule is misunderstood. (Unlike some casual writing styles, it isn't much harder to type "were" than "was.") Maybe someone will take it to heart and won't misuse it in a professional situation where grammar does matter.
What are the problem?
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
and not about Nazi grammar.
I'm teaching Night (Elie Weisel) to ninth graders right now, and I had too many random grammar rules pop into my head in relation to this book.
for doing your part to keep our language alive. It's amazing that helpful advice is so often rudely disdained in so many situations.