umeshpatil wrote:
It is correct only Randolph will make his reputation. Correct sentence below:
Published in Harlem, the Messenger was owned and edited by two young journalists, A. Philip Randolph, who would later make his reputation as a labor leader, and Chandler Owen.
My question was about tense used in this clause. 'would later make' seems to express that reputation will be made in future and how could any one do prediction like this ? This doesn't make any sense with regards to tense.
Hi umeshpatil,
Thank you for the post.
‘Would’ can certainly be used to refer to the future, but
only when referring to a hypothetical action that may or may not take place. For example:
• It would be very difficult for me to finish the work by tomorrow night.
• It would be impossible to fly first class to Paris; it’s too expensive.
When we’re sure that an action is going to take place, we use ‘will’. For example:
• I will finish the work by tomorrow night. – Correct.
• I would finish the work by tomorrow night. – Incorrect.
However, this official question is NOT conveying anything about the future. This sentence refers to an event in the past. Let’s consider a couple of simple examples before discussing the official question:
• When Steve Jobs dropped out of college in 1972, no one thought that he would go on to be a billionaire.
MEANING ANALYSIS
• This sentence tells us that Steve Jobs dropped out of college in 1972.
• At that time no one thought that he would become a billionaire.
So, here the ‘would + verb’ represents indicates that in 1972, no one expected that Steve Jobs would become a billionaire. So, this is a case in which we use ‘would’ to talk about an event that was going to take place. Here’s another example:
• In May, analysts announced that the economy would probably recover by the end of the year.
Meaning: The analysts announced in the past that a particular action would take place in the future.
Now, let’s move on to the official question:
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
• Published in Harlem, the Messenger was owned and edited by two young journalists,
o A. Philip Randolph,
who would later make his reputation as a labor leader,
o and Chandler Owen.
MEANING ANALYSIS
• This sentence describes an event from the past. It tells us that a certain publication, The Messenger, was published in Harlem.
• The Messenger was owned and edited by two young journalists A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen.
o A. Philip Randolph would later make his reputation as a labor leader.
So, everything stated in the sentence happened in the past. Even Randolph making his reputation as a labor leader happened in the past. The ‘would + verb’ only indicates that the action of Randolph making his reputation happened later in the past than the action of The Messenger getting published.
Hope the above discussion helps!
Regards,
Deepak.
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