Would Not

Question

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/nyregion/12frisk.html?pagewanted=all
"One night, 20 officers surrounded a man outside the Brownsville Houses after he would not let an officer smell the contents of his orange juice container. "

"Would" is not an action verb. It is a fake verb and should not be used after "after". So, would replacing "he would not" with "he refused to" be better?

JohnParis · Accepted Answer

I've never heard of a "fake verb." Is a fake verb the opposite of a real verb?
You could easily replace "after he would not" with "after he refused."
Whether one or the other is "better", is not an easy call. To me, both sentences are fine.

SheltieBites · Answer

But, "after" implies something happened. "He would not let an officer...." means nothing happened. So how does one talk about after "something" when that "something" never happened?

Anonymous · Answer

"One night, 20 officers surrounded a man outside the Brownsville Houses after he would not let an officer smell the contents of his orange juice container. "
"Would" is not an action verb. It is a fake verb and should not be used after "after". So, would replacing "he would not" with "he refused to" be better?

By "fake" verb, I think you mean "modal" verb, which is a kind of "auxiliary" verb.

The acceptability of the sentence (a quote from the NY Times) is a matter of style, not grammar. It's OK grammatically, though style-wise a bit clunky; replacing would not with refused to is just another way of saying the same thing, though personally I think the latter has more style.

Grammatically, past time would in this context is being used with a kind of dynamic modality called volition. It implies an unwillingness or refusal on the man's part to let an officer smell the contents of...

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