Sam, I'm clipping & saving your explanation of the Subjunctive Clause Involving Forms of WAS/WERE, for the next time I forget why it works that way. I was, however, thinking about your other two examples involving non-subjunctive(?) IF/THEN statements:


> [snip!]
>
> Note, however, that not all clauses following "if" are subjunctive. Here are two different sentences, both correct, which mean different things:
>
> "If Thomas Jefferson were President..." begins a speculation about how something would be if Thomas Jefferson were President at the present time, or some other specified time during which it is known Jefferson was NOT President. "If Thomas Jefferson was President..." implies that you are talking about a past point in history and you are not sure if Jefferson actually WAS president or not.
> [snip!]
>
> S "English is crazy/fun" am


If I recall correctly (yeah right) from the last time I looked up IF...[THEN] Case clauses, these would be examples of Conditional Clauses instead. It gets even more messy because the tenses can be "mixed tense" conditional clauses.


1st Conditional: A plausible real future event + the consequence
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ["If" + simple present, simple future + infinitive.]
Example: "If Thomas Jefferson IS President, he WILL oppose centralized government."

2nd Conditional: A less possible unlikely past/future event + the consequences
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ["If" + simple past/future, "would" + bare infinitive.]
Example: "If Thomas Jefferson WAS a Freemason sympathizer, it WOULD explain his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom."

3rd Conditional: A past event that didn't happen + the consequence
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ["If" + Past perfect, "would" + past participle.]
Example: "If Thomas Jefferson HAD BEEN President in 1812, he WOULD HAVE delayed declaring war on England."


Note: if the 2nd Conditional contains a form of the verb "to be", 'were' is the formal tense recommended for all persons (1st and 3rd person singular). The informal tense using 'was' is not considered grammatically correct. However, this informal form 'was' is often used in everyday conversation. The result end-clause always uses the modal 'would' to describe the consequence.

Example: "If I were you, I would kill Kelly."


Unfortunately, when I try to apply this general 'were' rule to my example above in the 2nd Conditional -- "If Thomas Jefferson WERE a Freemason sympathizer..." -- in that case, I find that Sam is correct. Having 'were' there just doesn't sound right to me. Weird.

And all this time I thought French conjugations were difficult with the "Past participle pluperfect nominal subjunctive Future freaking anterior submaxillary ganglionic" Conditional Form...

Wolf "Not as concerned with this as with realizing that 'If Dave WASN'T a babe' might be the correct form of the contracted negation. Gah! Now if Dave DOESN'T turn into a mermaid or something to justify all the debate over possible gender, I'll be SORELY UPSET" spirit