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Avoidance of shall | ||
Tags: Morphology | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 37 16 October 2012 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I live in Scotland and it is quite unusual to hear people form the future tense with shall. I have noticed this because my German wife uses "shall" all the time and it sticks out.
She says things like "Shall we go shopping?", "Shall we have lunch" etc. Obviously she has been taught book grammar. But to a Scots person, "shall" doesn't spring to mind naturally. I would say "will we go shopping?" or "are we going shopping?" It seems to me that "shall" is used to express immediate future events that are just about to occur, whereas "will" is often used to describe more distant happenings. But the Scots don't seem to use shall a great deal, at least not in everyday speech. We have other peculiarities, eg "should have went" is VERY commonly heard up here. Edited by beano on 16 October 2012 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6377 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 37 16 October 2012 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Americans also rarely use shall. It sounds too much like a declaration like MacArthur's "I shall return."
This is really common where I grew up as well. It's so common, in fact, it was several years after I left until I realized it was incorrect. Edited by newyorkeric on 16 October 2012 at 3:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 37 16 October 2012 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
It's archaic now, but it wasn't that long ago that it was common use, at least in the upper midwest US. My grandparents' generation used "shall/shall not/shant" much more than "will/will not/won't". R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4655 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 37 16 October 2012 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was very surprised when I started to reactivate my English 10 years ago that "shall" did disappear from the speech and wasn't taught anymore - it gets mentioned, but not actively taught.
I can vividly remember learning (British) English for the first time, and I shall / we shall was presented as only acceptable form. It was almost 30 years ago... My grasp on textbook-correct English grammar went south since I left explicit grammar study and textbooks and get all I learn from native speakers (internet, online communities, books, chats,...). "Should have went" didn't even ping as incorrect. It may be time to pick a grammar book again :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 37 16 October 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Shall sounds stiff and formal to my ears. I may use it, but only on the occasions where I
want to stress formality in my speech (e.g. in a business context) or for comic effect (or when I'm quoting something, obviously). But in speech I don't even say "will" - this blurs into "I'll". I also use shall in questions when I'm offering something such as "Shall I do the dishes later?" I wouldn't quite claim it is archaic, just less commonly used. In analogy, in Dutch I use "zal" in analogous situations and colloquially form much more constructions with "dat ga ik doen". "Zal" implies a slightly higher level of formality. But I'm not known for my slangy speech, so these words tend to crop up quite often when I talk anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4637 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 37 16 October 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is an extensive article in Wikipedia on the use of shall and will:
Shall and will Personally I probably use "shall" a bit too much, due to influence from Norwegian, where "skal" (infinitive "skulle") is used regularly to indicate future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 37 16 October 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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A few years ago, there was a flurry of news and tabloid articles about the evolution of
the Queen's English. It was actually quite interesting, once you got past all the fluff of the subject. Anyway, one of the points made was her diminished use of "shall" over the years. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4903 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 8 of 37 16 October 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think her native German is interfering at this point. In German you can ask a question/make a suggestion with both verbs "sollen" and "wollen".
So it would be perfectly normal (at least for me) to ask: "Sollen wir einkaufen?/Wollen wir einkaufen?" or "Sollen wir essen?/Wollen wir essen?" 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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