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Would I use 'was' or 'were' here?

She laughed as though there was/were a chance he might have said anything else.

(I read about the difference between was and were, but I can't apply it to this sentence because it seems like both a past possibility and a hypothetical, like a past hypothetical. Could someone explain the answer to me please?)

user80473
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    I think this question has already been answered here http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/660/if-i-was-or-if-i-were-which-is-more-common-and-which-is-correct; I'm marking it as a potential duplicate. – Matt Gutting Jun 17 '14 at 19:27
  • Er, that linked to thread is another old thread full of bad info. There are many more recent threads that are better. – F.E. Jun 17 '14 at 20:14
  • @F.E.: If you don't like the old answers, go and add a better one yourself (and definitely downvote anything you think is "bad info"). It's no justification for allowing a new duplicate covering the same ground. – FumbleFingers Jun 17 '14 at 20:20
  • @FumbleFingers 1) I have written many posts on similar questions. 2) I don't have enough rep-points to go and downvote all the old threads and posts with garbage in them. And one more -1 vote won't make a difference, since many of those garbage posts have high vote counts. 3) It would be easier for me to write a specific answer post to answer this OP's specific question than for me to go search all the crappy old threads that are on this site. 4.) It is better for the OP if someone actually did spend the time to answer their specific question. 5.) I don't have the time to answer all the posts. – F.E. Jun 17 '14 at 20:29
  • Hopefully someone who understands your question will have the time and patience to share their understanding with you by answering your question in a way that you'll be satisfied. :) – F.E. Jun 17 '14 at 20:31
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    @F.E.: Instead of complaining about bad previous answers to this hardy perennial, you could have cited the question you yourself answered (I assume you don't think that's a bad answer). Apart from anything else, it would have saved me the trouble of going to look for it - and I might have cited that instead of the one I did. – FumbleFingers Jun 17 '14 at 20:39
  • @FumbleFingers But it was someone else that provided the link to an old thread--so I'm a bit confused? Would you be "Matt Gutting" too? -- Yes, that old post of mine that you linked to does seem to be informative. And it just received its first upvote. The info in it could be helpful in answering the OP's question, but unfortunately, the OP's example also has the complication of involving an existential construction ("there is/are"); and it also has the possibility of being an open conditional or a remote. So, there could be a lot there to go over, maybe, in an answer to the OP's question. – F.E. Jun 17 '14 at 21:01
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    It's "were".... – Lightness Races in Orbit Jun 17 '14 at 21:39

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