Editing Shall and will (section)

===As past of ''shall'' and ''will''===
When ''would'' and ''should'' function as past tenses of ''will'' and ''shall'', their usage tends to correspond to that of the latter verbs (''would'' is used analogously to ''will'', and ''should'' to ''shall'').

Thus ''would'' and ''should'' can be used with "[[future-in-the-past]]" meaning, to express what was expected to happen, or what in fact did happen, after some past time of reference. The use of ''should'' here (like that of ''shall'' as a plain future marker) is much less common and is generally confined to the first person. Examples:
*He left Bath in 1890, and would never return. (in fact he never returned after that)
*It seemed that it would rain. (rain was expected)
*Little did I know that I would (''rarer:'' should) see her again the very next day.

''Would'' can also be used as the past equivalent of ''will'' in its other specific uses, such as in expressing habitual actions (see [[English markers of habitual aspect#Would]]):
* Last summer we would go fishing a lot. (i.e., we [[used to]] go fishing a lot)

In particular, ''would'' and ''should'' are used as the past equivalents of ''will'' and ''shall'' in [[indirect speech]] reported in the past tense:
*The ladder will fall. → He said that the ladder would fall.
*You shall obey me! → He said that I should obey him.
*I shall go swimming this afternoon. → I said that I should go swimming in the afternoon.
As with the conditional use referred to above, the use of ''should'' in such instances can lead to ambiguity; in the last example it is not clear whether the original statement was ''shall'' (expressing plain future) or ''should'' (meaning "ought to"). Similarly "The archbishop said that we ''should'' all sin from time to time" is intended to report the pronouncement that "We ''shall'' all sin from time to time" (where ''shall'' denotes simple futurity), but instead gives the highly misleading impression that the original word was ''should'' (meaning "ought to").