Re: Past predictive?

On May 6, 9:30 pm, Michael West <> wrote:
On 6 May 2007 18:24:02 -0700, "jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx"

<jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"The president of the Screen Actors' Guild at the time was Ronald
Reagan (who would later, as president of the United States, fire air-
traffic controllers for striking)."

Would everyone agree that "he would be dead within a week" and "he was
dead within a week" and "he died within a week" are exactly equivalent
in meaning?

Yes, but the "would be dead" adds the implication that the narrative
is going to jump back to the original sequence instead of continuing
after his death. This could be helpful to the reader.

Sometimes you need the "would". "The Podunk Picayune wrote,
'President Roosevelt will lead us to the end of the war,' not knowing
that he would be dead within a week."

The "would" in this example is clearly different from the one that
denotes accustomed behavior. While I'm sure I've used it, I've never
really thought about it. Is it a survival of some archaic form?

As people have said, "would" was originally the past tense of "will".
I think a lot of its meanings can be understood that way, including
this one.

--
Jerry Friedman

.

Relevant Pages