In this case both forms are used by native speakers, and there may well be a difference in the nuance of meaning between them. Best known for her 1960s film appearances in classic comedies such as Carry On Screaming , Doctor in Clover and Carry On Regardless , Fielding's sublime talents also brought her success in serious roles on the stage, including title roles in Hedda Gabler and Colette . Avoiding the present tense places more "distance" between the speaker and whatever he's talking about, which is a common feature of "deferential" statements/requests. I busted the front window with the metal gas container, poured gasoline around the entrance, lit the rags, and threw the rags and gas containers inside through the broken window.

Having been delighted by her work on stage and screen, radio and recordings for my whole life, I really enjoyed these reminiscences. FENELLA FIELDING was born Fenella Feldman in 1927 in London to Russian and Romanian Jewish emigre parents. This collection of anecdotes from her life and career are a reflection of her quirky, offbeat personality. In the later sentence, speaker is indicating though he/she does not think he/she is going to smoke but what if he/she does? Fenella Fielding is best known for her film appearances in Carry On Screaming (1966), Doctor in Clover (1966) and Carry On Regardless (1961).not very complimentary about a couple of well known comedy actors,and you have to guess who the gent is in one of the later chapters who had strange sexual peccadillos. Spiced with star-studded anecdotes and personalized with moving stories about innocence and experience, the early struggles of an aspiring actress and later professional rivalries, Do You Mind If I Smoke?

Actually, you could say that the [current] sentence is in the subjunctive tense, not commonly taught in English, unless you're learning a foreign language, like French, Italian, Spanish. The conventional Would you mind if I asked observes the sequence of tenses of type II conditionals (simple past in the if-clause, conditional in the main clause), and it's this which causes people to say that the version with the present in the if-clause is incorrect. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. The question hypothesises one event coming first ("I smoked") and then asked whether it would then be true that now "you mind".I wonder if there is some subtle nuance about the choice of present or past - the past being more theoretical and the present being used when you are literally about to do something? As you say it seems to be a conditional, and I think in this case it does work as a conditional sentence. This way of writing comes across as more Fenella, more authentic than a chronological description of events, because she was a great raconteur. I have sat across the table from someone who has asked one of these questions while at the same time taking out the cigarette packet and the lighter and pulling the ashtray from the shelf. Somehow I feel that this type of question is not to be lumped together with a hypothetical question where the speaker does not necessarily intend to smoke at the time of speaking.

However, it seems that some will criticise "smoke" in such a sentence so if you want to have the least contentious answer it is certainly "would you mind if I smoked? The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.She was the voice of the Blue Queen in Dougal and the Blue Cat (1970) and the telephone operator and loudspeaker voice in The Prisoner (1967). Doctor In Clover and Carry On Regardless, Fielding's sublime talents also brought her success in serious roles on the stage, including title roles in Hedda Gabler and Colette. You may use it in informal language, but either it is subjunctive or conditional, or whatever, it is NOT correct. g., people who smoke or who do not smoke) are included and excluded as part of local community life.