posted
My Japanese coworker asked me to proof read a document (a shipping protocol) she was getting ready to mail. She wrote this sentence:
quote:The health center would ship specimens to the laboratory.
Which I changed to:
quote:The health center will ship specimens...
She asked me why I used will instead of would there, and I (being the science type that I am and not a grammarian) could not articulate why would is the wrong word to use in this instance.
How would you language types answer this question?
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
"Would" is conditional. "Will" is future. As in "I will post this," as opposed to "I would post this, except I know Jon Boy will be correcting me almost immediately."
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Simply, "would" does not make the action definite. If you say "will" you are making it clear that this event is 100% going to happen.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
It wasn't a paragraph, it was a bulleted list describing a future sequence of events.
Dept of Health would notify you that a specimen is on the way
The patient would deliver the specimen to the clinic
The clinic would ship the specimen
She had 5 or 6 sentences like this (I've gone home now and don't have the original document anymore). I suggested she change would to will in all instances, which she did without hesitation, but she wanted to know why "would" was wrong.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
What's the context of the list? Does it start with something like "If blah happened . . ."? Or something like, "Next,"?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I think that she was thinking as though the conditional were unstated. "(If you were to choose our company) we would ship specimens to the laboratory." However, in that sort of case, it's considered properly assertive to speak as though they've already chosen your company and already hired you. As a result, "would" sounds tentative rather than confident.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
I don't really have anything to add, except to note that I obviously have Liz trained well. And I tentatively agree with Tom, but I'd want to see the whole list in context first. Using "would" instead of "will" basically implies that the triggering event (ordering the specimen or whatever) is less likely to happen.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
What fugu said. "Would" means this is what would happen under some condition that isn't or wasn't true:
If disease broke out, I would ship specimens. If disease had broken out, I would have shipped specimens. If disease were to break out, I would ship specimens.
But if it did break out:
When disease broke out, I shipped specimens. (Past) When disease breaks out, I ship specimens. (Present, ongoing)
...and if it's in the future and unknown:
If disease breaks out, I will ship specimens. When disease breaks out -- and I know it's going to -- I will ship specimens.
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
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