Were and was

[mrsnw]

I still don't understand when you use was and were. Can someone explain in a very simple way please :) xx

Plural vs singular:
I was going
He was going
It was going
vs
They were going
We were going

And "you were going", singular and plural.

What about school though? That can be both can't it?

The school was open at 8.
The school were going on a trip.

No, school is a singular noun; you could say the school pupils were going on a trip.

If there were more than one school you'd say the schools were going on a trip.

So would you say "you was going ...." Or "you were going......." ? Xx

You were going, mrsnw

If there was more than one school.....
If there were more than one school....

It's sentences like these that make me hesitate over which is correct.

"were" is also past subjunctive, which is a relic in English. It's used for all persons in the subjunctive. You can do without it, but it comes up in phrases like "if I were you" or "if wishes were horses". Rarely turns up without "if".

"you was" is dialect and therefore not appropriate in most writing.

I think of it as 'if there were to be...' Or even 'if there were to have been...' (The words in italics implied but not spoken).
So you couldn't replace it with 'if there was' because it wouldn't make sense.

Don't know why - can't really remember the rules of grammar but I know what I like!

Maybe some confusion arises from the way, in English, 'you' can refer either to the singular or plural.
So, in French, for eg, there is a distinction between the two and the verb is conjugated differently; you would never get someone saying the French equivalent of 'you was' because it's usually obvious when plural is meant (even when the formal 'vous' is used it has a different ending from the familiar, single 'tu.'

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