The distinction between was and were trips up writers, students, and language learners every single day. While the rules for singular and plural subjects seem straightforward today, the historical journey of these two past-tense verbs is marked by profound phonetic shifts, grammatical restructuring, and irregular sound changes inherited from Germanic roots.
If you've ever wondered why we say she was but they were, or why the subjunctive mood demands if I were instead of if I was, the answer lies in centuries of linguistic evolution. Tracing how these forms developed reveals why English grammar treats past states of being with such unique complexity.
Germanic Roots and Old English Origins
To understand was and were, we have to travel back to Proto-Germanic, where verbs relied heavily on vowel alternations known as ablaut to indicate grammatical tense. In Old English (roughly spoken from the 5th to the 11th centuries), the verb wesan (to be) was already highly irregular, functioning alongside other copular verbs like bēon.
In Old English, the past tense of wesan split into distinct singular and plural stems. This phenomenon, known in historical linguistics as grammatical suppletion, meant that speakers used entirely different root sounds depending on the number of the subject.
- The singular forms (ic wæs for "I was", þū wære for "thou wert/were") derived from one etymological root.
- The plural forms (wē wǣron for "we were", hīe wǣron for "they were") derived from a separate root entirely.
These early patterns established the structural foundation we still use. Even as English dropped grammatical gender and simplified its noun cases over the next thousand years, the split between the singular was and the plural were proved remarkably resilient.
Middle English and Standardization
Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, French vocabulary flooded into English, and the language underwent rapid morphological simplification. Grammatical cases dropped away, and word order became much more rigid to compensate.
During the Middle English period (1100–1500), dialects varied wildly in how they conjugated past-tense verbs. Some northern dialects began leveling the plural forms, occasionally applying singular verbs to plural subjects or vice versa. However, as the printing press arrived in the 15th century and a standard dialect based on the East Midland (London) variety emerged, prescriptive grammarians locked the paradigm into place:
- Was became firmly assigned to the first-person singular (I) and third-person singular (he, she, it).
- Were became assigned to the second-person singular (you were — replacing thou wert over time) and all plural subjects (we, you, they).
This standardization reduced regional chaos, but it left behind a stubborn evolutionary artifact: the subjunctive mood.
The Subjunctive Mood and the "If I Were" Rule
While indicative sentences follow strict singular/plural rules, conditional and hypothetical statements preserve an older grammatical structure known as the subjunctive mood.
When you say, "If I were you," or "I wish she were here," you aren't making a mistake. You are using the historical past subjunctive. In earlier stages of English, the subjunctive had distinct forms to express wishes, hypotheses, or counter-factual situations. While most English subjunctive forms have faded away, were survived as the standard form for all persons in hypothetical contexts.
Using was in these contexts ("If I was you") has become common in informal spoken English, but formal writing and edited prose still favor were for counter-factual conditionals.
Common Mistakes and Modern Usage
Navigating was and were in modern writing usually comes down to identifying two things: the subject's number and the mood of the sentence.
- Subject-Verb Agreement in the Past Indicative: Always match singular subjects with was and plural subjects with were. For example, write "The dog was barking" and "The dogs were barking."
- The "You" Exception: Always use were with the pronoun you, regardless of whether you are addressing one person or a group ("You were late today").
- Compound Subjects: When two subjects are joined by and, treat them as plural and use were ("The manager and the assistant were absent"). When joined by or or nor, let the verb agree with the closer subject ("Neither the teacher nor the students were ready").
Recognizing these traps helps eliminate common agreement errors in professional and academic writing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do we use "were" with "you" even when talking to one person?
Historically, thou was the singular second-person pronoun (taking wære), while ye or you was plural. Over time, English dropped thou in polite discourse and generalized you for all second-person interactions. Because you historically triggered plural verb agreement, it retained were.
Is saying "if I was" officially incorrect?
In casual speech, if I was is widely accepted and understood. However, in formal writing, examinations, and professional contexts, if I were remains the preferred standard for counter-factual conditional statements because it preserves the historical subjunctive mood.
Did English ever use "was" for plural subjects?
Yes. During the Early Modern English period and in various regional British and American dialects, forms like we was or they was appeared frequently in vernacular speech. However, standardized prescriptive grammar heavily suppressed these forms in written English.
