if you worked at Rolls Royce and used a word like handling or sporty, you'd've been fired.

[Tarheel]

@Tony_M Didn't your spell checker flag "autoritative"? (My phone automatically corrected the misspelled word.)

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not sure about that. The Vietnam War, as we know it, was almost 20 years after WWII; the first military campaign was in 1965. For medicine, it's a lot of time. Some methods and techniques would've become obsolete by that time. I reckon they would've developed a lot of new ones by the time the Soviet Union sent their troops and medical personnel to Vietnam.

I could've used the past perfect, but I decided to go with "would've become" and "would've developed". I wanted to sound less certain and make a tentative suggestion. Do these work in this context?

What do you think? Is my understanding correct?

The use of "would've become" and "would've developed" don't indicate uncertainty. The second could be taken to be less certain purely because of your use of "I reckon".

As you were told earlier, we sometimes use "would" even when we're 100% certain of what we're saying.

Dave: How old were you when you first went skiing?
Sarah: I would have been eleven. When did you first go?
Dave: It would have been 1996 so I'd have been seven.

Dave: How old were you when you first went skiing?
Sarah: I would have been about eleven. What about you?
Dave: I'd probably have been about seven.

In which of those dialogues is it clear that the answers are less certain and why?

 

[Tony_M]

As you were told earlier, we sometimes use "would" even when we're 100% certain of what we're saying.

Thank you, @emsr2d2
What's the difference between "would have become" and "had become"?

 

[jutfrank]

Example 1

James May: In fact, I like to believe that if you worked at Rolls Royce in the 1970s, and you ever used a word like handling or sporty, you'd've been fired.

Worked and used - open/real condition, May is saying if it's really true that you worked and used those words, you would've been fired.

Yes.

As I understand it, May does want to mix a few different things together: things like authoritative/expert opinion, conditional vibe (since it's a conditional sentence), and expected behavior of Rolls Royce managers and executives.

I wouldn't say he's 'mixing things together', but yes, any of those could be the case.

"Would've been fired" sounds better than just "were fired".

I don't think this is right. What do you mean by 'sounds better'?

Example 2

Pawn Stars Do America: Star Wars Legos Hide a Valuable Secret (Season 1)

- This looks like it was made in 2019, and it would've been the 20-year celebration for the Star Wars and Lego collaboration going on, and to think that they did 700 collabs in, you know, 20 years, it's quite a lot, and this one would be one of them.

Would've been - expert opinion. Chum knows something about Lego, and he's expressing his thoughts using this construction.

He's providing an informative fact as an expert. It's not an opinion, but a fact.

When I hear this phrase, it reminds me of "it's bound to have been" or "it's very likely to have been one of those special series of Lego in 2019."

No, that's very different because what you're saying there is speculative, expressing possibilty. With the Pawn Stars guy, he's not expressing possibility, but rather fact.

Example 3

Now, I asked this question a few days ago:

A: Have you ever heard of Alex Zalevich?
B: Yes, he was a fashion designer many years ago. His collections were bizarre, eccentric, and funny at the same time.
A: That's right; his imagination was good, but he would never have worn any of his masterpieces...at least in public.

Yes, I remember.

This example is mine. I would say that here A's expressing their authoritative opinion

What do you mean 'I would say'? How is it that you don't know what you mean?

I would really strongly recommend to you that you don't try to analyse your own sentences. Study real language, like the cases we're speaking about above. I don't like your example because I can't really work out properly what you mean. I can't understand the context well enough. I don't think it's right to study sentences made up by learners, so I'd rather not do it.

A doesn't want to appear 100% sure

So how can he be expressing an expert opinion? I can't feel that this is true at all.

, but I reckon this use of "would never have worn" is similar to Example 2; it's like saying, "it's very highly unlikely that he wore something like this."

Yes, your example does seem to be saying that it's highly unlikely that he wore somerthing like this but no, example 2 is not saying anything about probability. Example 2 is expressing fact, so they're not comparable.

Example 4

Today at school, I had to talk about medicine and its development after WWII:
I was discussing this topic with one of my classmates:

Classmate: Soviet doctors definitely gained a lot of experience during WWII. It was extremely important in Vietnam.
Me: I'm not sure about that. The Vietnam War, as we know it, was almost 20 years after WWII; the first military campaign was in 1965. For medicine, it's a lot of time. Some methods and techniques would've become obsolete by that time. I reckon they would've developed a lot of new ones by the time the Soviet Union sent their troops and medical personnel to Vietnam.

I could've used the past perfect, but I decided to go with "would've become" and "would've developed". I wanted to sound less certain and make a tentative suggestion. Do these work in this context?

Yes, you've used those tenses well. Very good. Your English is excellent.

 

[jutfrank]

What is your sad face supposed to mean?

 

[Tony_M]

What is your sad face supposed to mean?

Thank you, @jutfrank. Everything is great.