Re: Word usage in English dialects // was Slang, curses and vulgarities

On 3 Feb 2005, at 10.36 pm, Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)
wrote:

> Tristan McLeay wrote, quoting myself:
>
>> > It's the same as "should" in the sense of "Would you approve of this
>> > course of action?" except that it also implies a promise that if you
>> > say yes then I will.
>>
>> I'm not sure where the 'should' is in 'Would you approve of this
>> course
>> of action?', I suppose you edited it out at some stage...
>
> Er, no ... "in the sense of.." doesn't mean "as contained in.." to me;
> it means, "in the capacity whereby it can be used to mean..".
>
> (This is a "well" in the sense of "hole in the ground", sort of thing.)
Oh sorry, I totally misinterpreted what you meant to say. Okay, I
getcha now.

>> > Besides, "shall" is easier to say than "should" :-)
>>
>> I think you'll find it hard to prove that!
>
> [d] -> [l] is a pretty common sound change, especially after [U], I
> suggest, and easy to reproduce by slurring.
Mm, but I don't find [Su5] any easier to say than [Sud] (and I find
[Sul] significantly harder than either). But the vowel in 'shall' isn't
a [u]/[U] anyway :P

> In normal conversation (i.e. informal spoken language) I would almost
> certainly leave out the "to" in this context. Only in informal spoken
> language, of course, but that's what this example is.
Even in informal speech there's a remnant of it: [d&~:n@D@SOp],
f'rinstance (as I say it), and I would reflect this in the orthography
with 'to'. But 'shall' is so definitely not a part of informal speech
that I just can't read that sentence informally.

>
>> > Only I and we. You can't really make implied promises on behalf of
>> > other people. :-)
>>
>> Yeah, but I didn't know it was an implied promise, did I? I was aware
>> that there's a prescriptivist rule about using 'shall' in the first
>> person and 'will' in the second and third though...
>
> Are you sure? I would have sworn that the old-fashioned prescriptivist
> rule is that "shall" is a command ("thou shalt not", sort of thing, or
> "you shall not enter this room without permission") whereas "will" is
> a prediction (as in, "if you stand too close to the edge you will
> probably fall off").
I think we're both right, and the meanings switch in the first person
compared to that of the second and third. It's really no surprise that
I don't say 'shall'.

--
Tristan.