The villagers advised him to run uphill if he 'were' / was ever unfortunate enough to be chased by a bear. Which out of the two is correct? Was or were? The word 'if' makes the sentence a conditional clause ... but some people say that 'was' is correct.
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4Possible duplicate of [If something was vs If something were.](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/110497/if-something-was-vs-if-something-were) That question is closer to the *exact* construction here, but [Why is it “If I were you” and not “If I was you”?](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/23853/) is a better question with better answers. – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '17 at 15:28
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If I were ever unfortunate enough to be chased by a bear, I would explain to it that it was an impossible occurrence, so get lost, buddy!
If I was ever unfortunate enough to be chased by a bear, I would run like hell because it was a quite probable thing to be chased and eaten by a bear.
Michael Login
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A singular, uncountable noun in English must be preceded by a determiner. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Aug 13 '17 at 00:40
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That means, if the occurrence of something is possible , then we should use 'was' and if it isn' , then the word 'were' is correct. Am I right? If not, please help again! – Ayesha Aug 13 '17 at 07:25
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