Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- auxiliary verb Used to express desire or intent.
- auxiliary verb Used to express a wish.
- auxiliary verb Used after a statement of desire, request, or advice.
- auxiliary verb Used to make a polite request.
- auxiliary verb Used in the main clause of a conditional statement to express a possibility or likelihood.
- auxiliary verb Used to express presumption or expectation.
- auxiliary verb Used to indicate uncertainty.
- auxiliary verb Used to express repeated or habitual action in the past.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Preterit and past subjunctive of will.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See 2d
weld . - imperative Commonly used as an auxiliary verb, either in the past tense or in the conditional or optative present. See 2d & 3d
will .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb As a past-tense form of
will . - verb As a modal verb, the subjunctive of
will .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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And, of course, if some journalist cited an anonymous source for some scandalous bit of information without making any effort to ensure the source was credible, I would think those journalists *would* have an issue.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Anonymous Comments and Modern Tort Law and Antidiscrimination Law 2010
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For those who ask opponents of amnesty to try living the tough life in their home country, if every third world country in the world said that and used it as an excuse to come in here illegally and demand rights...that would not be good for the US now..would it?
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It would also be many other things -- major headaches now and in the fugure -- but it * would* win.
Poll: Nearly Half Of African Americans Want Hillary On Ticket 2009
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I would disagree with that, but I *would* argue that on a national scale it is right for all adults to support via taxation the education and health of all children.
More Annals of the Great Depression: What Divides Us And Why Tenured Radical 2009
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But I would sure like to know who he * would* endorse.
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October 29th, 2008 11:29 pm ET i do believe that bill clinton is better now than he has ever been…..would be interesting to see what kind of president he would make in this time and age now that he has all that experience under his belt. the dude is just pure charisma.
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Sure you are just like that girl because you are buying jeans, not that you would ever take the opportunity to show off your new striped underwear ..er ..would you?
UTI fun! We head to the big city for lingerie. Go catboys! Elizabeth McClung 2008
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I know it would add a few hundred kms, but it *would* get you there.
This is going to be interesting StyleyGeek 2008
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McCain castigated the effort, declaring he hoped Congress would reject the bill because it would create chaos.
OpEdNews - Quicklink: Webb: McCain Refuses to Co-Sponser GI Bill for Post 9/11 Vets 2008
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McCain castigated the effort, declaring he hoped Congress would reject the bill because it would create chaos.
OpEdNews - Quicklink: Webb: McCain Refuses to Co-Sponser GI Bill for Post 9/11 Vets 2008
pterodactyl commented on the word would
As I was browsing the Interwebs yesterday, I came across a list of advice to young people. It was titled "What I Wish I Would Have Known", and every item on the list began with "I wish I would have known that..."
After I stopped banging my head against my keyboard, something occurred to me. The reason why this phrasing bothers me so much is that it combines two different indicators of the subjunctive mood: "I wish that I had" and "I would have", which is redundant. You don't need the extra indicator. You can just say "I wish I had known", and that's enough to establish the subjunctive. So, why do so many people feel the need to add "would have"?
Well, maybe it's a similar phenomenon to the double negative. As I mentioned in another thread, many languages, and some dialects of English, use double negatives as negatives. ("I ain't no fool", for example.) The double negatives don't cancel each other out, and they aren't considered to be redundant. They just emphasize the negativity of the statement.
By analogy, if "I ain't no fool" is a double negative, then maybe "I wish I would have known..." is a "double subjunctive"? Maybe it's not redundant... maybe the second subjunctive is for emphasis?
I don't know. It's an interesting theory to think about, though.
July 11, 2013