I’m implementing the edits to Grief: The Great Yearning my last couple of readers suggested, and I was doing fine until I hit this passage:
I’m trying to find comfort in knowing he is no longer suffering, and for a moment yesterday I even envied him. I wish my pain were over, too.
Both readers said “were” should be “was.” Since they are readers, not editors or grammarians, I ignored the suggestion, especially since MS Word grammar check agrees with me. Still, something niggled at me, so I spent an hour online reading various articles comparing I wish it were vs. I wish it was. And this is what I found:
Were is used if what is wished for is impossible, Such as I wish the sky were pink with green polka dots.
Was is used if what is wished for is possible, such as I wish the sky was blue.
The first sentence connotes a futile longing for the fantastic, the second connotes hope for a future day when the sky will be again be blue.
Another pair of examples:
I wish I were home again, sitting on the veranda, drinking sweet tea with my mama.
I wish I was home again, sitting on the veranda, drinking sweet tea with my mama.
Using were in the first sentence conjures up futility; I can never go home again, perhaps because the house burned down or my mama died. Using was in the second sentence conjures nostalgia and looking forward to going home and seeing my mama again. All that from a simple switch of verbs! Such is the beauty of our nuanced language.
So, how does this translate to my editing problem? I changed were to was. When I wrote the sentence twenty-one months ago, I deliberately used were. I thought it impossible that the pain of those early days would ever diminish. And yet, though I still have bouts of pain at his being dead, I don’t feel the total and constant agony I felt in the beginning. So was is the better choice. It connotes hope rather than futility.
So, I’m trying to find comfort in knowing he is no longer suffering, and for a moment yesterday I even envied him. I wish my pain was over, too.
Someday, perhaps, it will be.
January 20, 2012 at 9:01 pm
It should be “were” although the market is moving toward the improper and informal “was.” When making a statement that is not reality, it puts it in the subjunctive mood which calls for the past tense “were.” See this site for examples: http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000031.htm.
January 20, 2012 at 9:55 pm
http://www.grammar.net/iwishiwere says: “Was” is used in situations where the statement might once have been or could be a reality. This verb mood is called “indicative”. These subtle differences once enabled a speaker to “indicate” something without using more words to spell it out.
“If I was home, I would be sitting on the couch eating chips.”
The speaker indicates with subtlety that he intends to go home, and potato chips will be involved.
“Frank’s not here yet, but if he was, that blueberry pie would be gone.”
Because “was” is used, even if it read, “If Frank was here, that pie would be gone,” readers can assume that Frank will show up eventually, and the pie is in danger.
In an unknown situation, it is admissible to use “was”.
“If Betty was smart, she’d go hide that pie.”
Even if there is proof that Betty is NOT smart, it is certainly more polite to indicate she might be!
“If it was Friday, I don’t blame her for taking a short lunch.”
“Was” is intended to emphasize “Friday” and that it was a fact.
How fun it is that certain things can be hinted at, if the listener can catch the subtleties. Can you think of any other words or parts of speech that change only slightly but definitely alter meaning?
January 20, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I should have read the comments in that article. According to a response in the comments, “I wish” always takes the subjunctive. I hate when I start second-guessing myself. So I changed “was” back to were. And back to “was” because I liked my reasoning, however wrong it might be. Then I changed it back to “were.” Who knows which word will end up in the ms.
January 21, 2012 at 11:35 am
Here’s another article about was/were: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subjunctive-verbs-was-i-were.aspx
January 20, 2012 at 10:27 pm
I love what you did with the one-word edit, Pat. It reminds me that one tiny little tweak in attitude can vastly improve one’s life.
January 20, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Thank you, Eileen. Some of these word choices can drive a person nuts.
January 21, 2012 at 5:41 am
For me, the very fact that you thought through so carefully your use of this one little word shows tremendous insight on your part, great effort to be completely honest with yourself (and therefore with your reader) about where you are and where you’ve been in your grief journey, and lends a mountain of credibility to your work on this book. I cannot wait to read the rest of it. ♥
January 21, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Have you ever heard the song “Punky’s Dilemma” by Simon and Garfunkel? It starts with the lyrics “I wish I was a Kellogg’s cornflake, floating in my bowl taking movies…” Which doesn’t really do justice to the tone of your article, but it was the first thing I thought of.
January 21, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Anything to help solve the dilemma of this one word does the article justice.
January 21, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Loved this article… and I personally like ‘was’ better than ‘were’ in the sentence described.