Quote:
Originally Posted by HCaulfield  Regarding the other version "...have...would...", that's just ungrammatical. |
It's not ungrammatical at all. Check the huge (yet not always reliable
) corpus called Google for "If I have to * I would" and you'll get over 100.000 results.
As for the other two types, according to many sources
(1)
If I have to choose either coffee or tea, I will choose coffee
refers to a hypothetical scenario which is
likely to come true, while
(2)
If I had to choose either coffee or tea, I would choose coffee
refers to a hypothetical scenario which is
less likely to come true.
Personally, I find this explanation flawed. It's better to see it as a matter of "graspable vs theoretical", or of "condition vs speculation". What I mean is that (1) describes that "event A >>leads to>> event B", while (2) describes that "in case of A >>>> B applies"
I know that the difference might seem barely perceptible, but it is substantial.