When asked to take out the trash, which do you prefer?
“Could you take out the trash?”
or
“Would you take out the trash?”
The change is slight and may not reflect such a major difference, but it is more than we realize.
Could may be construed as: Are you able to take out the trash? Are you strong enough? Are you capable or competent to take out a bag of trash?
Yet Would is received more positively and conveyed as a request rather than a demand, i.e Would you do me a favor? Would you help me out and take out the trash? and may even feel like a collaborative effort.
Since the difference is so slight (one single letter), and we use the two words interchangeably, we don’t think twice about it, but the difference is HUGE.
The thing is, words are things, and we switch, replace words left and right, and say things differently in our everyday communication be it: emails, chats, presentations, copy, and more, hoping to deliver the message just right to generate the desired response or action. Unfortunately, we don’t always make the effort of selecting the best words and means to deliver that message, and thereby don’t receive the response we’ve hoped for.