Monday, April 7, 2014

conditionals - "was" as a past subjunctive

I'd like to know whether "was" should be treated as a subjunctive in the following:





a. If there were a 20-story office building without an elevator, those whose office was on the 18th floor would climb many steps each day.



b. If there were someone who was able to speak over 500 languages at native levels, he would be considered a genius of some sort.




Here was is used to describe hypothetical situations and is considered correct even in Standard American English



I'd appreciate your help

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