Re: Word usage in English dialects // was Slang, curses and vulgarities
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, February 5, 2005, 20:29 |
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On Sat, Feb 05, 2005 at 01:57:47PM -0600, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> I am given to understand
> that, at least at one time, the peculiar prescriptive rule to use
> "shall" in first person, "will" in second and third,
That's the rule for the simple future, yes. Reversing the words ("I
will", "he shall", etc) is supposed to give more force to the statement,
expressing determination. Which is why, IIRC, Churchill said "We will fight
them on the beaches", rather than "We shall fight them on the beaches".
-Marcos