The conscious or semi-conscious application of prescriptive rules leads to errors of hypercorrection in formal speech situations (see discussion below).
A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes that the form is correct through misunderstanding of these rules, often combined with a desire to appear formal or educated.
This hypercorrection of "was" to "were" can also occur in cases where "if" does not express a condition, but serves as an alternative to "whether" in indirect questions.
This decreolization process typically brings about a post-creole speech continuum characterized by large scale variation and hypercorrection in the language.
