WISH + would stop popping up/stopped popping up

Question

1 I wish ads would stop popping up when I read articles on the Internet.

2 I wish ads stopped popping up when I read articles on the Internet.

I think that both are correct. What do you think?

Answer 1

They're both correct, and in most circumstances would mean precisely the same thing. The two sentences' grammatical structure is different, however, and there are circumstances in which they'll have different meanings.

They both express a hypothetical, subjunctive mood; "I wish ads stopped popping up" being a subjunctive about the habitual present (with the present tense taking a step into the past), whereas "I wish ads would stop popping up" is structurally a subjunctive about the [immediate] future (in which case "will" takes one step backwards, turning itself into "would").

Consider another example: "I wish you didn't go away so soon" as compared to "I wish you wouldn't go away so soon". In the first case, the speaker would usually be implying that the listener has a regular habit of going away sooner than the speaker would like. The speaker is most likely wishing the impossible: that something that habitually happens in reality didn't happen. In the second case, there is no such implication: while the speaker could be saying the very same thing as the above (possibly implying a criticism of the listener), they may simply be anticipating that the listener is about to leave (perhaps they have to for some reason) and expressing regret that it must happen.

Anyway, taken literally, "I wish it didn't happen" is a wish for a counterfactual hypothesis: a wish that something that does indeed happen didn't, whereas "I wish it wouldn't happen" can be interpreted as a (still hypothetical) wish something that either habitually happens or that one fully expects to happen in the near future, wouldn't happen from now on.

Mostly there's no effective difference between the two wishes, but just occasionally there is.

To illustrate the point, think of the future sentence "I'll do the shopping tomorrow." You could answer it with "I wish you wouldn't, because you always forget something"; but you're unlikely to answer with "I wish you didn't ...".

Personally, I tend to prefer the "wouldn't" form in most circumstances, as there's rarely much point in wishing a counterfactual about the habitual present.