Shall or Will?

rogersgeorge on November 16th, 2020

The rule used to be that, for the future tense, you used “will” in the first person and “shall” for second and third person. I will jump, you shall jump, etc.

This rule went away and now we use “will” for everyone. I think it happened about the time I was in sixth grade. I remember “shall” being taught then, but heard only “will” when I got to high school.

For what it’s worth, I remember Gen. MacArthur’s “I shall return” after retreating from Corregidor in World War II being discussed as technically incorrect, and that his intent was to express emphasis.”

So here:

https://www.gocomics.com/barneyandclyde/2020/09/03

So is she right or wrong? Maybe okay if she wants emphasis.

Somewhat off topic: The Army style guide says to use “shall” as an imperative. Something like “You shall open the valve slowly.”

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*