As if she wasn't/As if she weren't

Question

In the phrase below:

No one pays her any attention. They don’t even look at her direction, as if she weren’t there.

Is 'weren't' correct or should I change it to 'wasn't'?

Answer 1

Weren’t is correct as is. Colloquially, many speakers would say wasn’t, but prescriptivists object to that usage. The traditional grammatical analysis is that when discussing a statement contrary to fact (here, “She was not there”) one must use the subjunctive (so was becomes were).

One can sometimes contrast the indicative and the subjunctive. For instance, If I was there is a straight conditional; it might be followed by something like “…I have lost all recollection of it.” By contrast, If I were there introduces an irrealis; it makes sense when followed by things like “…I would not have to guess what’s going on.”