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Reading this article, the second paragraph says,

The pound’s instant reaction was to strengthen versus the dollar, a somewhat surprising response to would will be a fevered six weeks of opinion polls and uncertainty (assuming there are no last-minute changes of heart from Labour lawmakers). The fracturing of British politics along Brexiter and non-Brexiter lines makes elections fiendishly difficult to predict and voter polling hard to trust. But it’s the overriding expectation of currency traders that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s championing of Brexit will win him a majority.

I think the bold-Italic word is defined by the Merriam Unabridged,

would (noun) plural -s : a conditional or undecided wish or intention

The first question is, is this my understanding correct?.

The second question is, what could the bold sentence mean? The GBP is "reading" the result of the 6 weeks polls and uncertainty in the future?? (Here the auxiliary "will" is making me confused.)

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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about a typo/proofreading error (or two errors, depending on how you look at it). There's a missing what before would, and an unwanted will after it.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:47
  • @FumbleFingers Please do as you say. How can I, assume before asking this question, this could be a typo? Had you been a learner of my country's language, which is completely different from yours, would you yourself expect something is wrong so this would be a typo when you are reading our newspapers or articles? You are almost assuming I am a native speaker, the reality is completely opposite. Probably my vocabulary is around 4,000 - 5,000 at most, which is lower than 4th graders in your country. Thank you
    – user17814
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:53
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    @KentaroTomono - Having your question closed doesn't mean that you did anything wrong, just that the question will probably not be useful for future visitors to the site.
    – Justin
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:59
  • What @Reinstate Monica (great handle, kudos! :) said. I intend no criticism of you for asking (how indeed could you know?). My reason for closevoting is just that this particular combination of Question+Answer has no relevance for future visitors. But at least you have got your answer! (Although to be honest I'd have thought the text of my closevote would have dealt with that - no need for anyone to actually post or upvote a "formal" answer.)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 18:11
  • @FumbleFingers What of the second part of the OP's question?
    – MikeB
    Commented Oct 30, 2019 at 23:14

2 Answers 2

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Reading the beginning part of the article, I believe there is an error in the sentence you quote.

The phrase immediately preceding the puzzling word "would" is "a surprising response to". This phrase should by all means be followed by some kind of noun/pronoun element. "Would", or even "would will", cannot act as a noun, and just can't be correct here.

I think the author meant to say "a surprising response to ... what will be ..." or possibly, "a surprising response to ... what would be"... Perhaps he was even dithering between "what would" and "what will", and "would will" accidentally made it onto the page....?

In any case I think it's just a mistake.

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    Yeah, my first thought was the same. They probably meant to type what.
    – user230
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 16:38
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    Sometimes writing has typos, and just plain goofs. It's easy to spot them in your own language, but when you are learning another language, it's pretty natural to assume that anytime you are confused, the problem must be yours.
    – Lorel C.
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:16
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    Please calm down, @Kentaro. If you think about it, you should be able to see why there's nothing you can learn about English from the "typo" element of your question. All that can tell you is Writers and proofreaders sometimes make meaningless mistakes, which should be obvious anyway. But there is something you could usefully learn here about Why should it be would rather than will?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 18:16
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With regard to the meaning of the bold part, I can see why you would find it a little confusing. "The pound" in this case is not a physical item, but rather a metaphor for 'currency trading' which is of course (mostly) carried out by real people, with real feelings, and it is those people who are 'reading' the polls.

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  • Thank you for the reading. +1. Though, however, I happened to have found out a paid writer can make such a (as Lorel answered) mistake. To non native speakers, we have no option but to believe what native speakers wrote is correct firstly.
    – user17814
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:18
  • To be fair, it is more likely to be the fault of an editor - pieces like these often need to be stretched (or more often squeezed) a little to fit, which makes it very easy to break an idiom. Still a professional though!
    – MikeB
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:21
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    It is helpful to account for the context, too. Mistakes like this one are not all that uncommon in newspapers or daily news columns, where journalists are often asked to value speed over accuracy. On the other hand, if the quote came from, say, the ninth edition of a textbook, or a longer piece from a monthly periodical, we'd expect that to be examined much more carefully before going to print.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 20:14

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