2020年1月19日 · The person saying it should be wasn't cited this for support: "The use of were and weren't in the subordinate clauses depends on the reality or truthfulness of the subordinate clause. If it is true, then the indicative forms was and wasn't are in order. If it is not true i.e. counterfactual, then the past subjunctive forms were and weren't are ...

The fact that you wish something was or wasn't true means you should use the indicative. You are stating that something is factually one way or another, and wishing for the situation to be reversed. So "I wish it wasn't raining today" and "I wish …

2020年11月14日 · That use of "wasn't" sounds fine to me. What sounds a bit questionable is the idea that one could tell whether a person is blind just by looking at them. Also, "bespectacled" doesn't prompt one to think of sunglasses, so the subsequent mention of opacity immediately forces the reader to revise the mental picture that was forming.

2015年12月2日 · A's use of "wasn't" probably falls under the Simple Past designation. "The baby wasn't sleeping all night" — you might come across this sentence in a book when the narrator talks about a year when insomnia was a bodily habit of the baby. But it's not specific about the time in which this took place.

2018年11月14日 · If you were currently visiting Chicago for the first time, but you had been in Illinois (or the USA) on some previous occasion, but didn't go to Chicago, you might say "I wasn't here before...". In that case, the root word "was" slightly changes the meaning of "before", which could mean "before now" or "the opportunity I had before now".

2015年3月16日 · A farm woman, at the end of a heavy day's work, set before her menfolks a heaping pile of hay. And when they indignantly demanded whether she had gone crazy, she replied: "Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men for the last twenty years and in all that time I ain't heard no word to let me know you wasn't just eating hay."

Why wasn't she there? Which would be equivalent to: Why was not she there? Which doesn't make any sense. Considering how often I see this used I thought I could find something online about it, however I haven't had any luck. Is it grammatically correct to use "isn't" and "wasn't" in sentences like the one above, and the one below? If so, why?

"Napoléon was certain to win at Waterloo, if it wasn't not for unexpected heavy rains and his canons stuck in the mud". "If it were not for", subjunctive, express a doubt. "Napoléon could have won at Waterloo, if it weren't for his stubbornness to attack, despite unfavourable (US unfavorable) conditions and the opinion of his generals"

2015年11月18日 · Since negative form 'couldn't' can cover all situations (specific or general) you might hear it more. Couldn't can be used instead of wasn't able to. When you hear people saying wasn't able to, I am sure they are talking about something specific they couldn't/ wasn't able to do. Like, I wasn't able to do my homework yesterday.

2013年8月12日 · In the first example, was able to is an alternative. In the second example, could means that the speaker was in hearing distance of the phone, but implies that the speaker didn’t answer it, at least not immediately.