Thanks for clarifying your first posting. I had a problem identifying the usage examples you wanted me to analyze because they were not marked as such. Usually, here in the Forum, sentences or passages are marked by putting them under quotes to clearly set them apart from the body of the posting. In the case of your examples, however, there were no such markings, so your examples just incomprehensibly blended with the rest of your posting, and it did seem that you were unable to attach or link to the examples you were referring to. So in future, Mike, when giving examples of sentences or passages, always mark them with double quotes and unquotes to clearly set them apart from your own statements.
Now, let’s take up your question about the first example you provided:
“The preposition that
would yield the correct sense is, of course, ‘from among,’ meaning that the ‘one or two people’ specified in the sentence belongs to the totality of all the people visiting hospitals.”
To paraphrase your question for greater clarity, why does that sentence use the form “would yield” instead of “will yield,” and what, if any, is the grammatical and semantic distinction between them?
That sentence uses the modal form “would yield” instead of the future-tense “will yield” to denote a choice or instruction instead of simple futurity of the action. This usage, which is more pronounced in spoken British English, is usually for situations in which the speaker is instructing or advising someone to do something in a certain way. It doesn’t mean, though, that using the “will yield” form is grammatically wrong; in fact, in written American English, that distinction is rarely observed. To evoke the same sense of choice or instruction, we can write that same sentence using the form “will yield”: “The preposition that
will yield the correct sense is, of course, ‘from among,’ meaning that the ‘one or two people’ specified in the sentence belongs to the totality of all the people visiting hospitals.” Personally, however, I would prefer the modal “would yield” form anytime because it emphasizes the sense of instruction rather than simple futurity of the action. That, to me, is too big a distinction to simply gloss over by using the “will + verb” form.
As to your second example, “I
would like to introduce myself,” the modal form “would like” is used to convey in a polite way the sense of one’s willingness or desire to do something. One thing you’ll notice about this modal usage is that it has no valid equivalent using the “will like” form. We can’t say “I
will like to introduce myself,” and to say “I will introduce myself” is impolite and rough, to say the least. Indeed, its ability to attenuate roughness in language is one of the major virtues of the modal “would” as opposed to plain “will.” Check out my earlier posting on this aspect of the modal “would” by clicking this link to
“Will and would,” October 3, 2012.
And as to your third example, “At any rate, here, from Jim Wegryn’s ‘A Barrelful of Words,’ are some other collective nouns that would make sense.” Why is “would” used here instead of “will”?
That sentence is actually of the same type as the first example you presented—it’s making an instruction rather than just indicating the simple futurity of the action. To make that distinction clear, “would make sense” is the preferred usage, but then again, this is largely for spoken instruction. In the usual written form not intended for vocal delivery, using “will make sense” isn’t grammatically wrong and if you did, only the most rabid purist grammarians would notice and attempt to correct you.
