As @jeremyweate tweeted yesterday, what is with the use of “would” in Nigeria to describe events that “will” happen, like the news that “the President would go on leave”? Will and would are not interchangeable and they lead to different conclusions, so we need to be clear about how to use them properly.
Will refers to what we know or believe will happen in the future. This could be a fact, like “it will be hot this afternoon,” or a belief, like “it will be a good year for our business.” It could also be a promise or statement of intent, like “I will come and visit you tomorrow.”
We also use will to refer to a “real” future conditional, that is something we expect will definitely happen in the future if something else does. In these cases, we use words like “if,”“when” or “unless” to express conditionality. For instance, “if you work hard, you will pass your exam” or “when you visit, I will show you the pictures.”
Would is the past tense of will, so we use it to refer to what we believed would happen, what we used to promise, intend or do in the past. For instance, “at the start of 2011, we knew it would be a good year for our business” or “when we lived on the same street, I would visit her every afternoon.”
We can also use would to refer to a future conditional. This is the sense in which the Nigerian press often uses it incorrectly. As a future conditional, would refers to scenarios that are only hypothetical or possible, not definite or expected. For instance, “I would buy a new car if I had the money” or “it would be nice to go on holiday this year.” Saying it would rather than will be nice to go on holiday means that you currently do not have plans to; you are only imagining how great it would be.
So if we read in the press that “the President would go on leave,” this information is ambiguous and incomplete. Nigerians are left guessing if the President’s leave is not definite but conditional on something or the other, or if it is in fact already planned, meaning he will go on leave.
Meanwhile, all this said, the news today is that the President is actually already on leave… Let’s hope he comes back ready to tackle Nigeria’s challenges!
