IN case you missed it, yesterday, I talked about poetic license and how it is used, sometimes loosely, by songwriters and singers to 'escape' semantics or rules like grammar, all for art's sake. And this explains why Akon didn't flinch when he said, 'Nobody wanna see us together, but it don't matter, no!' or why the Boys II Men couldn't care less if they went 'down on bended' knees. Because it don't matter, erm, I mean, it doesn't matter. But the burning question was, who flashed the poetic license card between Justin and Beyonce when he said, 'If I WAS your boyfriend...' and she said, 'If I WERE a boy...' And here it is. Grammar is not absolute; there are things that slip through the cracks, as I would love to describe it. Like this statement for instance, 'If I was or were,' grammar tells us to use the correct form of the verbs depending on the type of nouns they're modifying, whether they're singular or plural, for them to agree, hence, there's what we call conjugation or to be exact, subject and verb agreement. Quite simply, case in point, for singular pronouns like I, he or she, we should use the singular helping verb 'was.' But wait! Not too fast and not for hypothetical scenarios like this. If it involves, as previously mentioned, hypothetical scenarios or wishful thinking like hoping to be someone's boyfriend or imagining how it would feel to be of the opposite gender, we should use 'were' even for singular nouns or pronouns. So, yes, Ms. Knowles knows! And to that, I say thank you, Beyonce!
