The conscious or semi-conscious application of prescriptive rules leads to errors of hypercorrection in formal speech situations (see discussion below).
This decreolization process typically brings about a post-creole speech continuum characterized by large scale variation and hypercorrection in the language.
Linguistic hypercorrection occurs when a real or imagined grammatical rule is applied in an inappropriate context, so that an attempt to be correct leads to an incorrect result.
The highly developed alternative vocabulary including the mixed metaphors, hypercorrection, malapropisms and mis-pronunciations of the regular characters are much-repeated by the show's fans.
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.
