[Eng] Would usage in Wikipedia

영어 신문이나 소설을 읽다보니, would 의 쓰임이 굉장히 다양하다.
백과사전에서 용법을 찾아보았다~^^*

From Wikipedia
'Would'

''Would'' is originally the past tense of ''will'', and it (or its contracted form ''d'') is still used in that sense: "In the 1960s, people thought we would all be driving hovercars by the year 2000."

Its more common use, however, is to convey the conditional mood, especially in counterfactual conditionals; that is, to express what ''would'' be the case ''if'' something were different: "If they wanted to do it, they would have done it by now." There is not always an explicit protasis ("if" clause) in this use: "Someone who likes red and hates yellow would probably prefer strawberries to bananas" means the same as, "If someone liked red and hated yellow, he or she would probably prefer strawberries to bananas."

''Would'' can also be used with no modal or temporal meaning, to affect either politeness or formality of speech:
*"I would like a glass of water, please."
*"Would you be a dear and get me a glass of water?"
*"It would seem so." [[subjunctive]] mood

All of these uses can be described as displaying ''remoteness'': either remoteness of time (the past), remoteness of possibility (a conditional), or remoteness of relationship to the addressee (politeness or formality).