Comments | zial: Shall I?

zial

Shall I?

Jan 17, 2006 18:24

Does anyone else feel kinda like a douchebag when saying (or writing!) "I shall" or "we shall" instead of "I/we will?" I so seldom hear it used that it's beginning to feel like saying "peripatetic" or somesuch crap to your buddy in the buffet line. People just don't do it. But it still kinda bothers me to use the non-traditional form (Mrs. North of ( Read more... )

Comments 6

(The comment has been removed)

zial January 18 2006, 02:47:06 UTC

schadenfreude!!! Schadenfreude right up yo arse!! :)

thymepuns January 18 2006, 00:56:13 UTC

I don't think "shall" sounds pretencious. I tend to only use it in the question form, though. The only time I've been called out on it was in 7th grade at taco bell when I said "shall we?" to my friend and other people around made fun of it or something. That was a while ago.

hippie_jen January 18 2006, 00:56:46 UTC

dude i totally know! like, in hebrew class, when we translate this particular word, it's supposed to be like "lo, behold...", but that sounds stupid. so we usually translate it as "holy crap" or "look here, sucker" or something else:) i miss you, t! i hope your semester is going well.

zial January 18 2006, 02:48:54 UTC

man, I totally understand how you and dave felt this time last year.... but it's out of my hands now so yay.
I miss you too! ;_;

Re: I love dictionary.com scibrmonky January 18 2006, 01:28:28 UTC

From dictionary.com's results for "shall ( ... )

mshonle January 18 2006, 02:22:10 UTC

Hmm, I guess "shall" never comes up in technical writing, so when I was studying writing in more depth it never came up. Thus, I don't know what the rule is.

Mostly I stick to the rules (such as not ending sentences with prepositions) so as not to distract the reader and to signal about the paper's quality. But from what I've heard many of these English teacher "rules" were never founded in reality, and the best writers have broken them all. There still exists "incorrect" usage, but what's generally accepted might make some who've learned artificial rules cringe. (Perfect example: there's absolutely no reason to go out of your way to avoid splitting the infinitive. If you can easily avoid it, I think it's worth it. But some sentences are clearer with the infinitive split than without. E.g. "We managed to just miss the tree.")