WRONG: "I wish I was rich."
RIGHT: "I wish I were rich."
Remember the famous song from Fiddler on the Roof? Why did Tevye use were and not was when he sang "If I were a rich man."? Because he was expressing a desire he knew was unlikely ever to be fulfilled, and that requires the subjunctive mood. In the subjunctive, the verb "to be" is always expressed as were.
When should you use subjunctive? Anytime you are saying something that is highly unlikely or contrary to fact. A good test is to add a "but" statement sentence. "If it were up to me (but it's not), everyone would get a raise.
THE EDGE: When you use as if, as though, if and wish to express something contrary to the fact, remember the song and use were, not was
WRONG:"Can I help you?"
RIGHT: "May I help you?"
WRONG:"You look like you've seen a ghost."
RIGHT: "You look as though you've seen a ghost."
WRONG: Everyone had heir raincoats on."
RIGHT: Everyone had his raincoat on."
WRONG: I could care less."
RIGHT: "I couldn't care less."
Let's face it, it's not that easy selling on the Internet. It's not impossible, but if you don't know what you're doing, you're likely to lose more money than you make. Scary thought, but it's happening every day!
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A Preacher wrote on a blackboard: "I pray for all." A lawyer wrote underneath: "I plead for all." A doctor added: "I prescribe for all." An ordinary bloke came along and muttered: "I pay for it all!"
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Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (Harper&Row)
Join up and dine at the Olive Garden, Red Lobster FREE. Shop at Neiman Marcus, Wal-Mart, KMart FREE. Enter ID=SURFINGCRAZE.
Business Promotion
"The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders"
Diana B. Henriques
Here is the engrossing story of the original corporate raider, Thomas Mellon Evans, who, half a century ago, pioneered a business style that forever changed the American commercial landscape and, ultimately, American life. In "The White Sharks of Wall Street," New York Times investigative reporter Diana B. Henriques has crafted a well-researched and entertaining account of this renegade trailblazer who championed "shareholder rights" and "down-sized" companies and built "conglomerates" decades before the terms had been coined.
You may remember Kipling's long poem about Sir Anthony Gloster, the old shipping tycoon. On his deathbed, he is telling his son about his competitors:
They copied all they could follow,
But they couldn't copy my mind.
And I left 'em sweating and stealing,
A year and a half behind."
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