PooterGeek

16 Comments

1. John Humphries
   Posted 15Jul05 at 11:50 | Permalink

   I feel sure I should understand that but I don’t. What does it mean please?

2. Linda Grant
   Posted 15Jul05 at 12:12 | Permalink

   I have problems with ‘which’ and ‘that’

3. PooterGeek
   Posted 15Jul05 at 13:21 | Permalink

   “I feel sure I should understand that but I don’t. What does it mean please?”

   Follow the link I gave under the quotation and you will be enlightened:

   “That passage illustrates two senses of will and one of shall. And there’s a neat distinction in William Blake, ‘I will not cease from mental fight,/ Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.’

   [S]hall expresses a simple future. ‘I shall be in Oxford tomorrow afternoon.” Will conveys a firm intention, or determination. “I will go to Oxford, whatever you say.’”

4. Pooter Geek Snr
   Posted 15Jul05 at 16:08 | Permalink

   A man was walking along the promenade at Blackpool when he heard a cry from the sea, “I will drown and no-one will save me!” He looked out to sea and there was a man flailing his arms in the water, but, being a pedantic git, like myself, he chose to ignore the cry and carried on his walk, thinking that the man in the water was determined to commit suicide.

5. Adriane
   Posted 16Jul05 at 03:26 | Permalink

   Except in technical writing (western side of the pond) …

   The software shall accept a-z, 0-9 as inputs…
   is a specific contractual requirement.

   The developers will only use approved compilers … is a mere technical suggestion.

6. George Szirtes
   Posted 16Jul05 at 21:54 | Permalink

   Which / that… which as a choice of specific number, that is a choice of unspecified number. This is an explanation that might suffice, or rather, of all the possible explanations this is one which might suffice….

   Just a Hungarian guess…

7. PooterGeek
   Posted 17Jul05 at 19:42 | Permalink

   Ariadne wrote:

   “Except in technical writing (western side of the pond) …

   ‘The software shall accept a-z, 0-9 as inputs…
   is a specific contractual requirement.’

   ‘The developers will only use approved compilers … is a mere technical suggestion.’”

   That’s because—in typically perverse English fashion—the rule reverses in the second and third persons.

8. PooterGeek
   Posted 17Jul05 at 19:41 | Permalink

   PooterGeek Snr wrote:

   “but, being a pedantic git, like myself”

   Shouldn’t that be:

   “but, being a pedantic git, like me”

   ?

9. Linda Grant
   Posted 18Jul05 at 10:31 | Permalink

   I shall give that a go, George.

   Until I read Lynne Truss I was insecure about the semi-colon but it seems that I was right along, so now I use it with abandon.

   Such as: here; and then again, here; and here; or even here; but not here.

10. dearieme
    Posted 20Jul05 at 16:27 | Permalink

    1) ‘[S]hall expresses a simple future. “I shall be in Oxford tomorrow afternoon.” Will conveys a firm intention, or determination. “I will go to Oxford, whatever you say.” ’ But in Scottish English, versa vice.

    2) that/which:- “That” defines (e.g. The house that Jock built) while “which” refers (e.g. The house, which Jock built, stood on the shore.).

    3) “The developers will only use approved compilers” would be better as “The developers will use only approved compilers”. (Or “shall” as the case may be.)

    (1) and (2) are mere matters of convention, but I have empirical evidence supporting my advice in (3).

11. Hugh
    Posted 08Jan07 at 17:26 | Permalink

    In the past, the difference between ‘will’ and ‘shall’ was well known. In the ‘I’ and ‘We’ forms, ‘shall’ is the simple future, and will is the emphatic future. In the other pronouns, it is reversed - ‘will’ is the simple form whereas ‘shall’ is the emphatic.

    This is why one would say “Shall I fetch that for you?” or “Shall we dance?” and not “Will I fetch that for you?” or “Will we dance”

    This is also why one would say “Will he deliver?” rather than “Shall he deliver”, because you are using the simple future.

    However ‘shall’ has all but died out in modern english

12. Jane Corbett
    Posted 20Jul07 at 11:19 | Permalink

    On the question of “shall” or “will”, I have a problem. I am teaching English to a Spanish boy. I well know the rule about “I shall, you will” being the simple future and “I will, you shall” being the imperative. I note the comments of others regarding common usage and it troubles me. Should I teach him all “will” to be the only construction of the future? If I do, the use of “shall”, as noted by Pooter Geek Snr., will disappear from the English language and, with it, a fine shade of meaning when communicating. I have similar problems with “me” and “I” which are totally misused by many people.

13. PooterGeek
    Posted 21Jul07 at 08:31 | Permalink

    Jane Corbett:
    

    Should I teach him all “will” to be the only construction of the future?

    I’m a great believer in the “pedagogical lie”: teach the simple generalization now and the subtle distinction later. First you tell students that light travels in straight lines as waves. Later, after they’ve understood that, you can blow their minds.

14. Peter Brodie
    Posted 23Apr09 at 22:28 | Permalink

    re that/which. Three possibilities: The house that Jack built collapsed. The house which Jack built collapsed. The house, which Jack built, collapsed. The first two feature the so-called restrictive relative pronoun; but which is “correct,” “that” or “which”? Simple. Yanks prefer “that” and Brits prefer “which.” (Just check respective publications—as I recall, in his “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell uses lots of “which”es and, I think, only one “that.”) Yanks even insist, in most grammar books, that only “that” is possible—but cf. FDR’s “a day which will live in infamy.” As for the unrestrictive relative pronoun, you can only use “which”—preceded by a comma: The house, which Jack built, collapsed.

15. Robert Seviour
    Posted 19Jul09 at 20:48 | Permalink

    Will / shall, that / which and semicolons - (or perhaps) . . .

    We of the English tongue are lucky, oh the subtleties we can amuse ourselves with; poor Johnny foreigner. (Or should that be, ‘with which’?)

16. Engineer
    Posted 19Jul09 at 20:50 | Permalink

    Suprisingly no one has drawn attention to ‘that which … ’ And it is that, which I shall claim as my contribution.