were to ........

h.saeed · Post by **h.saeed** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:40 pm

Hi all,
How do interpret the following sentence
"She is going to be your supervisor were you to come to London"
according to the sentence above, is there much of a chance in coming to London?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:45 pm

She is going to be your supervisor...when you come to London.

She is going to be your supervisor...if you come to London.

She is going to be your supervisor...were you to come to London.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:58 pm

If you think of were you to come to London as a more formal way of saying if you come to London, you'll see that the meaning doesn't fit with She is going to be your supervisor....

She is going to... suggests something that is (almost) certain to happen, whereas if you came... suggests a remote possibility. They therefore seem to contradict each other.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:57 pm

lolwhites wrote:If you think of were you to come to London as a more formal way of saying if you come to London, you'll see that the meaning doesn't fit with She is going to be your supervisor...

That's what I was thinking, lol, but even though the clauses seem to contradict each other in this instance at least, you'd agree that the combination of "imminent aspect"+if is possible, right? (Hence my less happy but still-smiling emoticon). Witness: I'm going to need to get another job if I continue buying so many books.

She is going to... suggests something that is (almost) certain to happen, whereas if you came... suggests a remote possibility. They therefore seem to contradict each other.

Are you aware that you changed the 'come' to 'came' there? (Probably you are, and are presumably saying that the remoteness results in an even greater contradiction (besides the 'if' already)). Obviously She is going to be your supervisor if you came to London results in a bit of a "clash" (versus 'come'). She WAS going to be your supervisor if you came/had come to London would be OK though, eh.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:10 pm

Agree 100%, Fluff. In this instance, changing either is going to.. to was going to... or come to came will reconcile the clash but (by?) changing the meaning of one half of the sentence so they don't contradict each other.

Another case of "Is this correct?" - "What are you trying to say?" maybe?