if you were ever to ask

[cannonkuo]

A interviews B

A: Do you think it was inevitable that you’d become a professional musician?
B: Well, if you were ever to ask any of us, were it—we would definitely have all said no. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a writer; my mum certainly didn’t want me to go on the road.

Does if you were ever to ask mean? And why doesn't B use "If you had ever asked..."?

 

[5jj]

It should be 'If you had ever asked'.

 

[cannonkuo]

It should be 'If you had ever asked'.

Thank you, 5jj. B is a native speaker from Britain, so I was wondering if her style of speech belongs to a dialect.
The interview is from

. (You can forward to 044/3:25.)

 

[5jj]

She speaks fairly standard southern BrE.

 

[cannonkuo]

She speaks fairly standard southern BrE.

So "if you were ever to ask" means "if you had ever asked" in souther British English?

 

[jutfrank]

So "if you were ever to ask" means "if you had ever asked" in souther British English?

No, what she said was incorrect. What she should have said was If you had ever asked.

 

[probus]

I am puzzled by your response @jutfrank. She is clearly a native speaker of BrE and she chose to say "If you were ever to ask any of us...". How can we as descriptivists say her choice was wrong? According to what rule laid down by whom?

 

[emsr2d2]

"If you were ever to ask" refers to the future. She's clearly saying that if they'd been asked (in the past), they'd have said no.

If you had ever asked us, we would definitely have all said no.
If you were ever to ask us, we would definitely all say no.

 

[5jj]

Many native speakers are not so fussy about tenses in conditional sentences as some teachers. Example.

 

[cannonkuo]

So, grammatically, the interviewee was wrong. She should've said, "If you had ever asked us, we would definitely have all said no."
However, as 5jj said, many native speakers are not so fussy about tenses in conditional sentences, and I can accept that.
Non-native speakers like me just want to make sure that the standard way to say something questionable, which I believe is one of the founding principles of this great forum.
Thank you all.

 

[Tarheel]

Many native speakers are not so fussy about tenses in conditional sentences as some teachers. Example.

She's annoying. I couldn't listen to that for five seconds. She teaches kids, right?

 

[Tarheel]

@cannonkuo You might want to rethink using the word "questionable" there.

 

[cannonkuo]

@cannonkuo You might want to rethink using the word "questionable" there.

Thank you, Tarheel. Can I say "something I have doubts about/with"?

 

[Tarheel]

@cannonkuo Perhaps:

I have questions.

Or:

I am puzzled about that.

Interviewer A: What do you think?
Interviewer B: I have my doubts.
Interviewer A: Should we send her a callback?
Interviewer B: Let's talk to the other candidates first.

(Apparently, in Indian English "doubt" is used to mean "question".)