Re: "Shall" & "Will"

[Mike Pope <mikep -at- ASYMETRIX -dot- COM>]

On Mon Jun 3, in response to my posting, Rod Bruce said:

>>In the US, "shall" is NOT USED. If you doubt this, try to
>>find references in any current major US publication illustrating
>>the use of "shall".

>Ask and you shall receive ;-)

>I found the following article titles that appeared recently in three
>different major US publications.

>From _The New York Times_ Oct 3, 1993

>     "Green shall return, like it or not"

>From _Computerworld_ Feb 1, 1993

>     "She shall overcome" (article about the growing ranks of women in
>                           information systems management)

>From _Business Week_ June 28, 1993

>     "The tiny shall inherit the market: 'subnotebooks' are fast becoming
>      the hot growth niche in PCs"

Don't know about that "green shall...", but the other two are stock
phrases. If we count these as current usage, I'll be we can also find "say
it
ain't so!" or " thou shalt not ..." out there in the same publications.

>I don't know if anyone has brought up Strunk and White in regards to
>this thread, but they use the following example to illustrate the
>difference:

>   A swimmer in distress cries, "I shall drown; no one will save me!"
>   A suicide puts it the other way:  "I will drown; no one shall save me!"

I dunno, I think this underscores the point: if you need a rule book to
figure
out which is which and when to use what, maybe you ought to spare your
reader and use something they can understand without recourse to the
reference shelf.  The point is not whether we can come up with
a difference, but whether readers will know what the difference is.

Personally, I feel like I've made my point, so I'm happy to discontinue this
thread; I'm sure others have had their fill. If you disagree that I have
made any point at all, I'm game for private postings.

 -- Mike Pope
mikep -at- asymetrix -dot- com