"if were to" vs "if were"

Question

1) If Mike were to resign and if Larry were elected to take his place, we should have more rigorous leadership.

2) If Mike were to resign and if Larry were to elected to take his place, we should have more rigorous leadership.

What's the difference between 1) and 2) ?

Thank you!

MrPedantic · Accepted Answer

Hello KL, welcome to English Forums!

I can't detect any difference between the two; except that perhaps #2 is marginally more tentative.

(For #2, you would need to say "...if Larry were to be elected...".)

Best wishes,

MrP

KateLee · Answer

Thank you very much!

Avangi · Answer

KateLee1) If Mike were to resign and if Larry were elected to take his place, we should have more rigorous leadership.

I have trouble figuring out the second part of this sentence. Do we use "should" rather than "would" because "we" is first person, or in order to express a different sense of the likelihood of having more rigorous leadership?

That is, if we said, "If Mike were to resign and if they elected Larry to take his place, they would have more rigorous leadership," would the part about the leadership mean the same as in the first sentence?

If it's acceptable to use "we would have more rigorous leadership" in the first sentence, would it mean that with Larry we shall definitely have more rigorous leadership; while with "we should" there's only some level of probability that Larry will bring us more rigorous leadership??

- A.

MrPedantic · Answer

That's an interesting point. I took the "should" as a first-person equivalent of "would", which is still possible in BrE; but an epistemic "should" is also feasible here. (If the "should" were in epistemic italics, there would be no ambiguity.)

MrP

Avangi · Answer

Many thanks, MrP, for your clear reply.

"if were to" vs "if were"

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