instruction:
Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.
question:
Possible Duplicate: 'If I was' or 'If I were'. Which is more common, and which is correct? Is this correct grammar? What if there was a Stack Overflow on Shouldn't it be 'what if there were a Stack Overflow on'?.
answer:
Prescriptively, you're correct, this should be were since this is being expressed with the subjunctive mood. Descriptively, I think you'll find both in the wild. In informal speech, most people I know would prefer was in this case (and those that don't are sticklers for the subjunctive). I do think that you are much more likely to see were written though, especially in formal writing. Either form is correct, and the subjunctive forms are far from dead. A more interesting question, I think, is whether or not the subjunctive mood is still being used and if the two forms have simply collapsed together. Is this a meaningful distinction? How could this be tested?


question:
Possible Duplicate: Position of question mark when sentence doesn't end with question Take this statement for example: That's not the question. The question is what was Colonel Mustard doing in the bedroom with the revolver. or That's not the question. The question is what was Colonel Mustard doing in the bedroom with the revolver? or That's not the question. The question is 'what was Colonel Mustard doing in the bedroom with the revolver?'.
answer:
I'd rather say: That's not the question. The question is: What was Colonel Mustard doing in the bedroom with the revolver? That's not the question. The question is, what was Colonel Mustard doing in the bedroom with the revolver? I used a colon or a comma because you're introducing a question that you are asking. I'll explain better: If you use quotes, it means someone else said it. The second one lacks the colon and it looks bad, because you must put a limit between the statement and the following question. I.E. I was wondering do you have a car? As you see, it makes little sense, unless you say 'I was wondering, do you have a car?'. The first one might be used, I guess, because indirect interrogatives might be written as statements. A small edit about this last sentence above: @Cerberus made me notice that indirect questions are such with no inversion. So I was thinking that if someone could add others point of views, it would be nice, in order to make this point clear for me and others once and for all. Native speakers are particularly welcome!


question:
If a proper noun includes the word 'the' and we want to refer to it using the definite article, should 'the' appear twice in succession? For example: 'Can you pass me The Who CD?' vs. 'can you pass me the The Who CD?' 'The US Government passed The Hague Act' vs. 'The US Government passed the The Hague Act?'. (this example inspired by a comment to this answer). To me the first versions seem incorrect, but the second versions sound very awkward.
answer:

I provided a long answer to the question 'Capitalisation in texts where the title is also a concept that is referred to within the text?' a while ago. Part of my answer to that question is directly relevant to this one. In the following quotation, The Boss is a nickname commonly used for the singer Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes what sounds natural can supersede what is technically correct from a syntactical point of view. For example: ✔ Those are the Gucci shoes I was talking about. Here, we have a proper noun acting to modify a common noun. But while the next sentence follows the same syntactical rule, it doesn't look right: ? That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. Even though the second article is not actually an article per se (it's part of a name), it's not possible to look at the duplication and think it's appropriate. If something is technically correct, but is still incredibly awkward, it's better to rephrase it. In this case, we could omit one or the other word (knowing the meaning would be understood anyway) or we could actually restructure the sentence so it's not awkward to start with: ✔ That is the ticket to The Boss I was talking about. ✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. ✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. In the last two sentences, we know perfectly well which words should be capitalizedit's just that we're choosing to omit one or the other for the sake of comprehension. (And which we omit would be a matter of style or personal choice.)