"My hand was positioned as if I was holding an orange to the piano, just as she said."

Is it "I was" or "I were"? People normally say "I were", but I don't know if that's actually grammatically correct.

Thanks!

I were

Lisa is correct. If you want the explanation about why, read about the subjunctive mood here:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/verbs.htm#mood
In that sentence, "as if I were holding..." is a conditional clause.

The reason we say "I were" in this construction is that we use the conditional tense after "if."

Writeacher is right. It's the subjunctive tense.

The correct phrase to use in this case is "I was." The phrase "I were" is not grammatically correct when used in the present tense.

Now, let's understand the reason behind this. In English grammar, we use the subjunctive mood to talk about hypothetical or unreal situations. We use "were" instead of "was" when we use the verb "to be" in the subjunctive mood. For example, "If I were taller, I could reach the top shelf." Here, the speaker is expressing an unreal or hypothetical condition.

In your sentence, "My hand was positioned as if I was holding an orange to the piano," you are describing a past action or situation, not a hypothetical or unreal situation. Therefore, you should use "I was" to show that the action of holding an orange to the piano actually happened.

To summarize, in the past tense, "I was" is the grammatically correct choice when talking about a situation that actually occurred. "I were" is used in the subjunctive mood to express hypothetical or unreal situations.