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Avoidance of shall | ||
Tags: Morphology | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 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 17 of 37 17 October 2012 at 11:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I learned this rule almost 30 years ago, in Czechoslovakia. We did learn British English from people who didn't have a lot of contact with English speaking natives. One of my teachers did visit Britain few times for short stays but she was an exception. I suspect that this rule could be true in the 40's, when the last free travel to Britain from Czechoslovakia was possible and, when I learned it in the beginning of 80's, it was already slightly dated. I left lapse my English almost completely (only passive knowledge remained) and took part in a weekend course about 10 or 15 years ago. I was surprised that this rule wasn't taught any more. 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 18 of 37 17 October 2012 at 11:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Certainly Winston Churchill must have known the rule when he said:
"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 19 of 37 17 October 2012 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Of course it turns out there's already a Language Log post about it.
Quoting Arnold Zwicky quoting the MWDEU (which I'm guessing without googling is the "Momething Womething Dictionary of English Usage"):
Edited by Ari on 17 October 2012 at 12:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5493 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 20 of 37 20 October 2012 at 6:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I live in Nova Scotia (New Scotland), and I hear and say these words all the time. I had no idea that they're incorrect. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 21 of 37 20 October 2012 at 11:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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About the "I will" and "I shall", the new, friendlier Google Ngrams can help us here.
"I will" vs. "I shall" in British English We can see clearly that "I will" was traditionally the commonest by far in the 1600s, with "I shall" gaining ground. After about 1680 they seem to be both used, though "I shall" very rarely outperforms "I will". After the 1980s it seems "I shall" is disappearing, though slowly. I suspect the 1600s data is the way it is because of the word "to will" was still being used to mean "to want". So it seems for the most part both have been correct, though "I will" has been slightly more common in most times. "I will" vs. "I shall" in American English In American English the corpus fluctuates a lot more in the early days, I'm assuming because of smaller data sets. Even cutting off at 1700 gives a lot of ups and downs, but we can clearly see that from at least 1790, "I will" has had a clear lead on "I shall", a gap which has never been closed. Looking at the second pronoun, though, gives me that "you shall" has been very rare in comparison, so it should maybe be avoided in non-emphatic statements if you want a conservative style, I guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 22 of 37 20 October 2012 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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'Shall' is often used to suggest something, as a polite question.
For example: 'Shall I open the window?' (rather than: 'Will I open the window?') 'It's a lovely day, shall we go for a walk?' 'Shall' can also be used to emphasise an intention instead of the word 'will'. For example: 'We shall fight on the beaches.....' as Winston Churchill said. Also, 'shall' is more commonly used in the first person ('I') or persons ('We'). 2 persons have 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 23 of 37 20 October 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Normally, I believe that the way people say things is the right way. In this case, though, I made myself stop saying it in order to not come across as a dolt. It's similiar to writing its for it's or there for they're or their. People do it commonly and yet you will be judged on it. Edited by newyorkeric on 20 October 2012 at 4:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| 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 24 of 37 20 October 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's not quite the same. You have quoted common punctuation and spelling mistakes. The phrase "should have went" employs a different past participle than the written norm. Yet there are parts of the English-speaking world where you will hear this phrase spoken by people across the board, many of whom do not consider themselves dolts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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