Hi,

 

I wonder if the native speakers of this forum could give me a hand here.

 

I know " the rule" is you can use "used to" both for past habits and states and "would" only for past habits but the other day a student of mine, who is a native English speaker, said that "the library would have some great books" sounded perfectly all right. I said "I would have a coke every day" followed the rule but not have in the sense of possession. She kept thinking and said:  "maybe if you take "great" away if wouldn �t sound OK. I wonder if this is because there is some kind of choice or will in deciding to have great books or if the state verb rule is getting a bit relaxed like the contrast fewer/less.

 

Can anybody please help me solve this riddle?

 

Thanks a lot

 

 

Maybe it �s because it means "the library would have great books every time I paid a visit..."?

Also,  if you take away "great", "the library would have books", but let me ask you what else would you expect to find in a library?:)

I am trying to think of a context where "the library would have great books" works.

 

Description:

When I was a little girl, we would go to the library once a week. We would check out a big stack of reading materials. The library would have great books.

 

If clause 

The library would have great books, if there had not been budget cuts. (nowadays)

 

To me, it seems like there has to be a time referent or an if clause because it sounds strange to say  "the library would have great books" as a stand alone phrase to mean that the library used to have great books. By comparison, "The library used to have great books." can stand alone. --Mary

You should go to the library. The library would have great books for you to use. (You might think that this sentence needs "will" instead of "would", but the situation is somewhat a conditional, so "would" works here)

 

Bruce 

We can use "would" to refer to a repeated action in the past, but this doesn �t work with the verb "have" in this context, as here it is a state verb and not an active verb. In this case, we must use "used to".

 

"I would feed the tortoise every day before I went to school." --> Habitual and repeated action in the past. 

"I used to feed the tortoise ..." --> As above

BUT "I would have a tortoise as a child." --> INCORRECT as "have" is a state verb here.

"I used to have a tortoise as a child." --> Correct: permanent and true fact about the past.

 

When "have" is an action verb, we can use "would" to refer to the past.

"When I was at university, I would usually have my shower in the evening, before going to bed, but now I prefer to have my shower in the morning." 

 

I hope that helps! 

 Bruce