Teacher Discussion Forums

Can one use:

She would be about sixty when she died.

Many say that it has to be "would have been". Are they correct?

Put me in the "would have been" group.

Even in narratives?

Hiya guys, I would take the "would be" example to be looking forward in a narrative, like metal implies, rather than back (which necessitates the addtion of the "have" and totally changes the form and meaning). Maybe it is something like the "concluding" function of past perfect that is at work here ("A new day had begun. THE END), or a "future simple" expressed in the past? Anyway I would be more interested to know if this is an example that somebody (you, metal?) have made up and are now fretting over than something which is likely to even occur in, let alone impede communication within a conversation (i.e. is it an attested example that you are quite sure was produced without any deliberate intention to confound the receiver)?

oops perhaps not in a conversation, slip of the keyboard key, rather, in a (written) narrative!

We use would to describe continous events in the past, normally in continuous narrative and often when reminiscing.

Take this example:

When he was an EFL teacher he would work very hard.
He would teach fifty screaming kids for ten hours a day;
After that he would attend a two hour staff meeting, and spend an hour imbibing the wisdom from the grammar gurus on Dave's cafe.
Then he would mark the homework.
At the end of that he would be dead-tired.

Now this is a completely different use of 'would' from 'She would have been about sixty when she died" where we are using would for logical presumption. I could make a case for using "would be" instead of "would have been", and that is an oral narrative where you are trying to give a sense of immediacy, but basically I'm in the would have been camp also.

Nice analysis, Stephen. Wow we all seem to be in the same camp - yey! I suppose if somebody did say (in a conversation) "She would be sixty when she died" they would be sounding a bit old sea-doggy, wouldn't they? If they dropped the "would" they could even resemble Captain Barbosa and be speaking da patois or whatever you call the non-standard varieties...

Here’s some similar examples for consideration:

There was one night, much to our astonishment that John asked if he could go to bed early, he would be about six or seven years old at the time, our mother was worried that he may be “sickening for something”, a Yorkshire expression for, going to be ill.

http://www.barnsleyandfamily.com/index.htm

He was probably nine or ten years old. I suppose he would be about four feet tall if he were standing normally. But he wasn’t, thanks to his immense backpack. It was so heavy that his whole body curved sharply forward as he trudged along the sidewalk. He looked a little like an undersized and overloaded Sherpa on his way to Mt. Everest.
http://www.suite101.com/print_article.cfm/6190/99831

I am trying to loate my grandfather Harry Rowe, who lived
in Monessen in 1914/5,he would be about 32 yrs old then.

Difficulty in accessing this site: resources.rootsweb.com/~guestbook/cgi-bin/ guestbook.cgi?title=PAWESTMO&action=view

One of my father's most disagreeable tasks was having to twice weekly push a two wheeled cart (laden with vegetables for sale) about 6 miles from Bank Hall farm in Bretherton to Leyland Market, a huge task for a young boy although not uncommon in those days. He would be about 14 years old. About this time, his other brother Bert was killed in the First World War.
http://www.heskethbank.com/genealogy/jo ... ter01.html

And a strange one:

I would connect this snake with the birth of Russian President Putin, likely Antichrist, who is a Satanic imitation of Christ. President Putin was born on Oct. 7, 1952, so on July 14, 1952 he would be about 6 months-6 days from conception (similar to 666, the Number of the Beast).

http://www.revelation13.net/prophecies.html

Edward Thomas: a portrait. Thomas, R George. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 1-69.
He would be about 16 years old then but his sources of pleasure changed little with advancing years though his opportunities became less….
---------------------------------
Memories of the Gorbals. Caplan, Jack. Durham: The Pentland Press Ltd, 1991, pp. 1-97.
I would be about 10 or 11 years old, and the biological urge was beginning to stir in my blood, though, truthfully, I had my first sexual intercourse at the age of 19.
-----------------------------------------
Harlow Study Centre: interview (Leisure). Recorded on [date unknown] with 3 participants, totalling 8002 words, 631 utterances (duration not recorded).
that would be about fifteen years ago
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The Penguin history of Greece. Burn, A A. London: Penguin Group, 1990, pp. 126-245.

At best, he would be about sixty-five when he returned; but he did not return.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oral history project: interview (Leisure). Recorded on [date unknown] with 3 participants, totalling 4678 words, 384 utterances (duration not recorded).
PS29U (`William', male, 72, farmer, Scottish):

Oh that would be about the nineteen thirties.
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Here's a reply I got today from John Lawler at the Univ. of Michigan.


This is something called the "present more vivid", a narrative construction in which the present is used instead of the past (or, with a modal, the perfect, since modals don't have tense).

You can get away with practically anything when telling a story, it seems.

Cheers,
-j

Thanks for all your interesting examples Metal. (Even though they all made me wince. )

Oh my GOD metal, you said "Here'S SOME exampleS"!!! As a punishment, you have to go (and) read EVERY post in the "There is/are" thread...only when you've finished can you come back, and then, if I do choose to speak to you at all, it will probably only be to say something like, "Ah, so glad you could join us for this morning's edification, Mr Metal56...Chow, Wong, Stephen Jones...kill him, kill, KILL!!" <<whoosh chop chop OW!>>(BTW If I do say that, the intended meaning is that Stephen Jones et al should kill YOU, not that anyone should kill SJ; even though the mysterious "LL" has paid me to "do it" (!), I'd prefer to keep him alive...he could still be useful to us...hahahahaha )

Well actually, Mr Smartypants, I would hardly want to speak to someone who didn't use that conversational and wonderfully relaxed form now and again, would I?


Or is that "now and again use"???

Okay, the talking is obviously over, prepare to die!! Chow, Wong, Stephen Jones etc etc...! <<whoosh chop chop OW!>> etc etc etc. Actually, for anyone not as smart as me who could be in any doubt that me and metal oops metal and me I mean metal and I are just 'avin' a larf here and not about to spill our coffee(s) let alone any blood, I should quickly say I do prefer and have myself been known to go for that whole "Here'S (some rubber) Johnnies!" (wow just think of how much better "The Shining" would've been with my line), or "A: Hey! There'S TWO grammarians kicking the beejeezuz out of each other in Dave's ESL Cafe's new NHB Teacher 'Discussion' Arena!!!" > "B: You're sure it's not THREE (hundred)?!" thang.

Ok Powrie! That's the fighting talk over, now the fighting grammar begins.

Take that!

They either arrive in Thursday, or they arrived last night-though originally they arrived on Saturday next.

Piff! Pow! Whack!

I'm sure even Chomsky would break a few pencils over your last example (I hate to even think of asking if it's attested...). Somebody, please pick up the thread again here and reintroduce a more adult tone (I and possibly metal too seem incapable)...or has it run its course? Apologies if that kind of directness is "verboten" in these forums...