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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004Habits & characteristics: would/will
Hello: Am I alone or wrong in detecting a certain lack of tense syncing in the following? The emphasis is on the CAPITALIZED items. -------- Customers would stroll by and there WOULD be Evie and me sprawled on a pink canopy bed, calling for our horoscopes on her cell phone. We'D be curled on a tweedy sofa sectional, munching popcorn and watching our soaps on a console color television. Evie WILL pull up her T-shirt to show me another new belly button piercing. She'LL pull down the armhole of her blouse and show me the scars from her implants. [Chuck Palaniuk, Invisible Monsters, Ch. 5, p. 69] -------- Swan, Practical English Usage, apparently tells me that "would" and "will" are employed here to designate habits & characteristics. Fine. What I am surprised of is that in the first part of the para the heroine seemingly uses a past tense (indicated by "would"), while in the 2nd part the accent seems to be on a present tense (or quasi-tense, indicated by "will"), which to me looks and sounds inconsistent. True, this is colloquial, and true, this is a relatively uneducated young lady, but ... BTW, I also know that modal verbs such as these are difficult to pin to tense, hence the posting, kindly asking for some clarification. Thank you very much, Marius Hancu > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > BTW, I also know that modal verbs such as these are difficult to pin to > tense, hence the posting, kindly asking for some clarification. I see a narrative of a daydream or reminiscence. The "would" sentences set a scene. The "will" is actually a very active present tense--the action of the plot of the daydream. However, since your quotation ends there, I can't be sure. It does seem to me that the daydream has culminated with the showing of the secrets, and all that remains to be complete is either an interruption or a speech. > > Swan, Practical English Usage, apparently tells me that "would" and > > "will" are employed here to designate habits & characteristics. Fine. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > showing of the secrets, and all that remains to be complete is either an > interruption or a speech. Thank you for your interest. It's a reminiscence of real past events. OK, a more complete section: -------- [Jump to (as Palahniuk says:-)) two models in a department store, Brumbach's, hired to show off in the furniture section] Customers WOULD stroll by and there WOULD be Evie and me sprawled on a pink canopy bed, calling for our horoscopes on her cell phone. We'D be curled on a tweedy sofa sectional, munching popcorn and watching our soaps on a console color television. Evie WILL pull up her T-shirt to show me another new belly button piercing. She'LL pull down the armhole of her blouse and show me the scars from her implants. "It's too lonely at my real house," Evie WOULD say, "And I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching." She SAYS, "I don't hang around Brumbach's for privacy". [the next section is too gross, really, but mainly in "would" and some reported speech by characters, using present tense in quotation marks. no "will"s there.] [Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, Ch. 5, p. 69] -------- Thank you very much, Marius Hancu > Hello: > > Am I alone or wrong in detecting a certain lack of tense syncing in > the following? The emphasis is on the CAPITALIZED items. You keep quoting from Chuck Palahniuk (not, BTW, Palaniuk) as if you expected him to conform to conventional grammatical usage. He doesn't. a) He is a modern. would-be 'hip' author and b) his novels are generally first person narratives in the character of a fairly weird individual. From (a) you can expect literary pyrotechnics and a willingness to concentrate on rhythm and impact rather than meaning and syntax. From (b) you can expect anything at all. You might as well criticise: << The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.>> as being redundant and repetitive. These are works of creative fiction and, as such, may not conform to Swan's Practical English Usage. We have, on occasion, criticised authors here when we believe they are writing in error or ignorance. But when, as in Chuck's case, they are clearly perfectly capable of producing boilerplate English but choose, creatively, to do otherwise, there is little point in analysing sentences or paragraphs as if he kept getting it wrong. Clearly it *is* relevant to discuss the issues that you identify, and Palahniuk may serve as a basis for providing examples, but it grates on me that you write as if you have detected errors - ''I am surprised ... the heroine seemingly uses a past tense ... while in the 2nd part the accent seems to be on a present tense (or quasi-tense, indicated by "will"), which to me looks and sounds inconsistent.'' Why surprised? The man has his style. He imposes a style on his narrator. He has sentences without verbs. He uses 'Me and him...'. His tenses jump about. You go on to say '' True,this is colloquial, and true, this is a relatively uneducated young lady, but ...'' Forget the 'but', please. -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply > You keep quoting from Chuck Palahniuk (not, BTW, Palaniuk) Sorry, a typo. > as if you expected him to conform to conventional grammatical usage. Not at all. > but it grates on me that you write as if you have detected errors I just want to see if some of his patterns really exist in colloquial or perhaps formal speech. Not if they are correct or not. Perhaps the reference with Swan was too much, but because I am not a native speaker, I needed a reference. In this case, I am talking about the presence of "will" after "would". I simply do not know the answer to this, my impression being that "is" (pure present) would be used colloquially more frequently. "Will" sounds to me even too educated in this context. Of course, Palahniuk is free to decree the language for his work. Thank you, Marius Hancu |
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