Is it: “If I were” or “If I was”?
That question came up today because my email contained the following message:
“Hi,
I am still waiting for your reply.
Please let me know if you are interested! Send you a Pricing,
Thank you.”
It was followed by a copy of her previous email.
I saved it, with the idea that one of these days I’d do a whole post about emails that chase prospects away. Then I started to write my reaction to it, and found that I needed to brush up on my grammar skills.
I wrote: IF I was to answer this, my reply would be: “Had I been interested, I would have replied to your last email.”
And then I thought “No, maybe not. That might be wrong.”
So I went online to find out, and yes. That was wrong.
I should have written: “If I were to answer this.”
Had I actually replied to her, I don’t know if I’d have mentioned how downright rude her email sounded. Maybe it doesn’t strike you that way, but “I’m still waiting” sounds rude to me. There are several other, better, less abrasive ways to write a follow-up after sending a message that got no response.
Since "If I was" was not proper in my sentence, I started to wonder where/when it would be proper.
My internet search said to use "if I was" for real past events. I couldn’t think of anything that fit, so looked around a bit more and found an example.
It would be proper to say: "If I was rude to you yesterday, I apologize."
In this case, "if I was" is acceptable because it refers to a possible situation in the past that might actually have happened. If you're talking about hypothetical or contrary-to-fact situations, "if I were" is typically used instead (e.g., "If I were taller, I'd play basketball.").
So - there's the answer. Most of the time, it's proper to write "if I were."
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