Because it’s optional and subtle (it looks just like the plural indicative forms of most verbs), it’s no surprise it’s disappearing. It can be used in counterfactual situations, but it generally isn’t required. That’s because the English subjunctive is pretty weak. Often you’ll see people using the regular present tense in these situations, writing in (1) “if Alicia was the President”. And in the subjunctive mood, the present tense of the verb to be is were, regardless of the subject. But because we’re talking about a counterfactual situation (Alicia is not really the president), we can use the subjunctive mood instead. Normally, you’d say “Alicia was” “Alicia were” would be a misconjugation. (1) If Alicia were the President, she’d get Party Down back on the air. The basic idea of the subjunctive mood is that it expresses something counter to reality. It’s prominent in Romance languages (if you’ve taken French or Spanish, you’ve surely encountered it), and it exists to various extents in other Indo-European languages as well, including English. The subjunctive, if you’re not familiar with it, is a verbal mood* that appears in a variety of languages. This unconcern is, perhaps, a minority view amongst men of letters, for whom saying if I were instead of if I was is often a marker of a proper education, but I’m comforted by the fact that it is the majority view amongst users of English. The English subjunctive may well be dying, but I am shedding no tears for it.
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