Learn English – Stressed “would” vs. stressed “will”: which explanation is more precise

modal-verbs

We can use would to express annoyance or irritation at things that are
happening now. There is usually a sense that this is typical, or not
very surprising.

You would say that! ( it's typical of you, and it's annoying ).

Wouldn't you just know it! ( I knew that would happen — and it's
annoying ).

–Page 78 (Macmillan – Inside Out English Grammar in Context Advanced)

However:

Stressed will can be used to criticise people's typical behaviour.

She WILL fall in love with the wrong people.

Well, if you WILL keep telling people what you think of them …

Stressed would can also be used to criticise a single past action –
the meaning is 'that's typical of you'.

You WOULD tell Mary about the party – I didn't want to invite her.

— 633.7, Michael Swan's, Practical English Usage.

I would think these two versions don't agree with each other. Which one is more precise and correct?

If PEU is right, the example in Macmillan would be "You WILL say that!"

Besides, is "Wouldn't you just know it!" a rhetorical question? How to parse it?

Best Answer

To my ear, the PEU examples are both colloquially natural and accurately described, while the Macmillan examples, although colloquial, are somewhat misleadingly described: things that are happening now might be better expressed as things that have just happened or have just been reported. But that's a minor criticism.

All these examples exhibit the same basic use of will to express habitual or characteristic action. In this sense (like all the modals in all their senses) this habitual will employs its tensed forms, and particularly the past-tense form, to express nuances which may have little or nothing to do with tense. Speaking very broadly,

  • Ordinary unstressed uses usually express simple habit—behavior repeated frequently over a long period of time—and tense has its usual significance of present or past reference:

    When he's preoccupied with a problem he will often pace up and down for hours.
    When I was a child we would always go to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving dinner.

  • When will or would is stressed, the sense is somewhat different: the habitual action is represented as perversely deliberate. And the tenses are employed somwhat differently, too. The present-tense form generally signifies that the subject currently makes a habit of the perverse behavior:

    She will keep falling in love with the wrong people is rhetorically equivalent to She insists on falling in love with the wrong people.

    But the past-tense form, although refers to a past action, does not express repeated action in the past but represents the subject's behavior on a single occasion as characteristically perverse:

    You would tell Mary about the party ... Even though I asked you not to tell anybody without checking with me, you just can't control yourself around her.

    A: He said it was all Jack's fault.
    B: Well, he would say that, wouldn't he. Nothing is ever his fault, oh no!

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