 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009BrE: the rain shall/will have stopped
"By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? Thanks. > "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." > Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? Both are correct, I think, but only "will" is colloquial. With best wishes, Peter.  SignaturePeter Young, (BrE), Consultant Anaesthetist, 1975-2004. (US equivalent: Attending Anesthesiologist) Now happily retired. Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK. http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk >> "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." >> Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? > Both are correct, I think, but only "will" is colloquial. I would expect the version with "shall" to express strong will or intention, meaning something like "I command that the rain shall have stopped." The first part of the sentence looks a little funny to me; "by the time I go home" or "by the time I'm on my way home" would look all right, so I think the problem must be the use of the present progressive. > > "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." > > Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? > > Both are correct, I think, but only "will" is colloquial. Certainly 'will' is colloquial, but I rather think it's the only correct alternative: 'shall' in the third person implies volition (in English, though perhaps not Scottish, English), which seems inappropriate here. I'm thinking, of course, of the old story of the Scot who fell into a river in England: when he cried 'I will drown: no-one shall save me', the onlookers obeyed his wishes and let him drown. Luke >>> "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." >>> Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > English, though perhaps not Scottish, English), which seems > inappropriate here. As far as I know, it also means strong prediction, which, if the person had consulted the weather forecast, might be reasonable. > I'm thinking, of course, of the old story of the Scot who fell into a > river in England: when he cried 'I will drown: no-one shall save me', > the onlookers obeyed his wishes and let him drown. > Luke Thanks. >> > "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." >> > Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > (in English, though perhaps not Scottish, English), which seems > inappropriate here. > I'm thinking, of course, of the old story of the Scot who fell into > a river in England: when he cried 'I will drown: no-one shall save > me', the onlookers obeyed his wishes and let him drown. I thought that the point of the story was that "will" implied volition. He wants to drown, so they let him. The OED cites both senses of "will" back a long way, so the lack of distinction isn't a recent innovation. They cite In 2nd and 3rd pers., as auxiliary expressing mere futurity, forming (with pres. inf.) the future, and (with pf. inf.) the future pf. tense: corresponding to _shall_ in the 1st pers. back to ca. 1000. The sense of As auxiliary of the future tense with implication of intention or volition (thus distinguished from SHALL v. B. 8, where see note) back to the same time (971). The note with "shall" is In OE. the notion of the future tense was ordinarily expressed by the present tense. To prevent ambiguity, _wile_ (will) was not unfrequently used as a future auxiliary, sometimes retaining no trace of its original sense. On the other hand, _sceal_ (shall) even when rendering a Latin future, can hardly be said to have been ever a mere tense-sign in OE.; it always expressed something of its original notion of obligation or necessity. In ME. the present early ceased to be commonly employed in futural sense, and the future was expressed by either _shall_ or _will_, the former being much more common. The usage as to the choice between the two auxiliaries has varied from time to time; since the middle of the 17th c. the general rule (subject to various exceptions) has been that mere futurity is expressed in the first person by _shall_, in the second and third by will. In indirectly reported speech, usage permits either the retention of the auxiliary used by the original speaker or the substitution of that which is appropriate to the point of view of the person reporting. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Your claim might have more 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |credibility if you hadn't mispelled Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"inteligent" kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." > >> Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? > > Both are correct, I think, but only "will" is colloquial. Are they really? That's not the way I learnt to distinguish between "shall" and "will". In addition, I find the tense in the first clause quite strange - I'd have had "By the time I go home, the rain will have stopped". I would only use "shall" with the First Person unless I wanted the rather archaic sense of "is supposed to" or "must". SignatureRob Bannister >>> "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > stopped". I would only use "shall" with the First Person unless I wanted > the rather archaic sense of "is supposed to" or "must". Only God, or Jupiter Pluvius, could properly utter the first sentence. Peter G. > "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." > > Are both shall/will allowed in current-day BrE, in this context? Google counts: "rain will have stopped": 1490 "rain shall have stopped": 0 I don't know much about BrE, but I suspect the "shall" is extremely uncommon. -- Jerry Friedman >> "By the time I'm going home, the rain shall/will have stopped." >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > I don't know much about BrE, but I suspect the "shall" is extremely > uncommon. The one hit in Google Books is from Otto Jespersen's _Efficiency in Linguistic Change_, unfortunately only available in a snippet: ... go out when the rain stops or when the rain has stopped, and the pedantic, in which futurity is expressly stated: when the rain shall have stopped. ... Interestingly, looking for just "rain shall have" turns up a number of things that the rain shall have done, at least in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: rain shall have ... become frozen levelled yon mountains to a plain fallen descended passed over said drawbridge ceased made it safe to return intervened lowered the temperature drenched washed us clean from all spot and blemish ceased to fall occurred cleared it off moistened them become the pure reiver of water of life coaxed the grass to grow a little driven the birds from their shelter prevented the evaporation from proceeding to such a length etc. Nearly all of these aren't simple statements, though. They're constructions like "until/unless/when/after/as soon as the rain shall have" SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |ActiveX is pretty harmless anyway. 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |It can't affect you unless you Palo Alto, CA 94304 |install Windows, and who would be |foolish enough to do that? kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Peter Moylan (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.