Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Secondary.

[teamsaint]

Secondary.

SEconded.

Although perhaps with that level of detail you should be seCONded to some government proNUNciation committee.

[ahinton]

Thou shalt, surely?

Of course, jean - and accordingly amended; what would we all do here without your correct and unpedantic pedantry?(!). Blame my reportage of that error on the translator, though...

[ahinton]

Much prefer Cage's "Happy New Ears", however stressed.

But "however stressed" who(m)? - and how, for that matter?

[ahinton]

SEcondary

Or

SeconDAry?

Or indeed Secondigny, in the Deux-Sèvres département of Poitou-Charentes, France...

[Serial_Apologist]

What's wrong with "secondary emphases"?

Nothing, of course. I'm not even sure why I raised it as an issue now. Maybe I was taught at school that all words of more than one syllable have just one that is stressed, or something absurd like that which I've never questioned.

[Pabmusic]

...or the other less well known translation "Open thy mouth wide and thou shalt put thy foot in it"...

Thou shalt, surely?

Jean's absolutely right, of course, but remember that 'you shall' eventually replaced 'thou shalt' anyway, which is why we have singular and plural the same nowadays. 'Thou' and 'you' represented the English equivalents of what French does still with tu and vous - the singular became informal, the plural formal.

[P. G. Tipps]

Jean's absolutely right, of course, but remember that 'you shall' eventually replaced 'thou shalt' anyway, which is why we have singular and plural the same nowadays. 'Thou' and 'you' represented the English equivalents of what French does still with tu and vous - the singular became informal, the plural formal.

I'm somewhat loathe to mix with the linguistic experts here but when I were a lad at school I probably would have been tawsed if I had ever uttered 'you shall' in front of my English teacher.

'Shall' was only to be used after 'I' or 'We' ... any other pronoun it was always 'will'.

Yet, the same teacher would quite happily recite 'Thou Shalt 'when reading some passage in Church.

Illogical, Sir!

[Pabmusic]

I'm somewhat loathe to mix with the linguistic experts here but when I were a lad at school I probably would have been tawsed if I had ever uttered 'you shall' in front of my English teacher.

'Shall' was only to be used after 'I' or 'We' ... any other pronoun it was always 'will'.

Yet, the same teacher would quite happily recite 'Thou Shalt 'when reading some passage in Church.

Illogical, Sir!

The convention (illogical, true) is: -

Simple statement of future:

I shall
You will
He/she/it will
We shall
You will
They will

(I shall be in town on Friday; you will probably find me in the pub)

Statement of intent, promise or obligation:

I will
You shall
He/she/it shall
We will
You shall
They shall

(I will be there, I promise. You shall get the drink I owe you then.)

[I'm not making this up.]

Of course, we don't speak like this. We say "I'll be in town on Friday; you'll probably find me in the pub. I'll be there, I promise. You'll get the drink I owe you then".

[muzzer]

I will read all this again but I shall be :;(£@)-/:ed if I can work out the difference ;)

[Pabmusic]

I will read all this again but I shall be :;(£@)-/:ed if I can work out the difference ;)

I agree. Textbooks will tell you that "I will go to town next week" has emphasis, or is a promise - I'll definitely do it. "I shall go to town next week" is weaker - just a statement of fact that might change with the circumstances ("I shall go to town (perhaps) next week").

[ahinton]

when I were a lad at school I probably would have been tawsed if I had ever uttered 'you shall' in front of my English teacher.

Clearly you attended the wrong kind of school; fortunately, these days, said teacher would find himself in appropriate trouble for such conduct.

[P. G. Tipps]

Clearly you attended the wrong kind of school; fortunately, these days, said teacher would find himself in appropriate trouble for such conduct.

Oh no, I was simply the wrong kind of pupil, ahinton. Of that, I have absolutely no doubt. Oh, how my poor, poor teachers (and parents) must have suffered ...

We must also be careful not to judge our forebears by the quite different standards of acceptability today.

That is grossly unfair, if I may be bold enough to say so, ahinton. Each generation smugly considers it has superior "standards" to the one that went before and each generation will inevitably get its own comeuppance via the one that follows!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm somewhat loathe to mix with the linguistic experts here but when I were a lad at school I probably would have been tawsed if I had ever uttered 'you shall' in front of my English teacher.

'Shall' was only to be used after 'I' or 'We' ... any other pronoun it was always 'will'.

Yet, the same teacher would quite happily recite 'Thou Shalt 'when reading some passage in Church.

Illogical, Sir!

Possibly because your English teacher was remembering that "shall" refers to something that is going to happen (whether one wishes it or not) whilst "will" refers to intention/desire. (S/he may well have studied Coriolanus, whose protagonist gets very het up when he is told that he "shall" do something.) To say to somebody else "you shall" is to give a command - they have no choice - and would be rather chimpudent for a mere scrap of a lad to be so bossy to his dominee; whereas the Divinity (being fond of His "Thou shalts" and "Thou shaltn'ts") is acting according to His job spec. "I shall", on the other hand (or wherever said Lochgelly product was applied) is commendable - "I may not like emptying the inkwells, but it needs to be done, and so I shall do it!" Whereas "I will do it" in this context might suggest an unusual line in hobbies.

Perfectly logical (logos = "word") Capting.


(I had the same issue only yesterday when adding the word "should" to a translation of Mahler's instruction for a five-minute pause after the First Movement of his Resurrection Symphony. I didn't mean to suggest it was optional.)

[Pabmusic]

Possibly because your English teacher was remembering that "shall" refers to something that is going to happen (whether one wishes it or not) whilst "will" refers to intention/desire. (S/he may well have studied Coriolanus, whose protagonist gets very het up when he is told that he "shall" do something.) To say to somebody else "you shall" is to give a command - they have no choice - and would be rather chimpudent for a mere scrap of a lad to be so bossy to his dominee; whereas the Divinity (being fond of His "Thou shalts" and "Thou shaltn'ts") is acting according to His job spec. "I shall", on the other hand (or wherever said Lochgelly product was applied) is commendable - "I may not like emptying the inkwells, but it needs to be done, and so I shall do it!" Whereas "I will do it" in this context might suggest an unusual line in hobbies.

Perfectly logical (logos = "word") Capting.


(I had the same issue only yesterday when adding the word "should" to a translation of Mahler's instruction for a five-minute pause after the First Movement of his Resurrection Symphony. I didn't mean to suggest it was optional.)