Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, it was Shakespeare who made Titania say to Bottom

Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.

Yes - which demonstrates what I've been saying throughout this discussion: "shall" is obligatory, "will" is desire, wish.
(Edit: which is why I might want to reverse them if such a reversal clarifies a difference of intention. "They shall not grow old" has a different meaning from "They will not grow old" - a difference which I believe Binyon was aware of, which is why he might have wanted to reverse the procedure required by the Rule/"Rule".)

(Have we been agreeing all along - has it been one of those dialogues?!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

At primary school we were taught sh-w-w, sh-w-w. Thus our village schoolteacher was relying on the custom regularised in the 17th c. Perhaps.

You had scat singing lessons in your Primary School?!

[Pulcinella]

Well, it was Shakespeare who made Titania say to Bottom

Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.

I would imagine that many a Bottom would wilt after wearing the head of an ass on stage for a while!

[jean]

Yes - which demonstrates what I've been saying throughout this discussion: "shall" is obligatory, "will" is desire, wish...

Yes - when those verbs are used with their original meanings.

But Germanic languages had no future tense, and what we are looking at here is what happens when parts of the modals shall and will are pressed into service as future auxiliaries.

If I may quote Fowler, from the chapter I linked to above:

In Old English there was no separate future; present and future were one. Shall and will were the presents of two verbs...Shall had the meaning of command or obligation, and will of wish. But as commands and wishes are concerned mainly with the future, it was natural that a future tense auxiliary should be developed out of these two verbs...

And then since, as Fowler points out we do not normally issue commands to ourselves, nor can we make statements about the wills of others, it was these forms, which he calls 'underused', that began to be used as what he calls the 'uncoloured' future - a future without the intention contained in the original verb.

(Edit: which is why I might want to reverse them if such a reversal clarifies a difference of intention. "They shall not grow old" has a different meaning from "They will not grow old" - a difference which I believe Binyon was aware of, which is why he might have wanted to reverse the procedure required by the Rule/"Rule".)

(Have we been agreeing all along - has it been one of those dialogues?!)

I think we may have been.

I blame Scotty, who wrote:

...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!

Not illogical, of course, as I tried to point out at the time.

The infant Scotty was in no position to tell his teacher what to do. But he was not God.

(How much simpler it might have been if, like the Germans, we had settled on werden.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I blame Scotty

Usually a sensible recourse.

Not illogical, of course, as I tried to point out at the time.

Indeed.

[gurnemanz]

(How much simpler it might have been if, like the Germans, we had settled on werden.)

The German "werden" with its basic meaning "to become" suggests a changing situation in the future. I suppose the nearest we have is "going to".

Ich werde ein Auto kaufen. = I'm going to buy a car. (probably more idiomatic than: I shall buy a car.). I assume we got this form off the French: Je vais acheter.

Interesting that to form the conditional (ie future possibility) German uses the subjunctive of werden (würde), where we use the subjunctive of will (would):

Ich würde ein Auto kaufen. = I would buy a car. And in English you can also use "should" (the subjunctive of shall) to form a condtional:
"If I should die, think only this of me ..."

The main problem with the future is that it doesn't exist as a fact until it actually happens.

[jean]

The German "werden" with its basic meaning "to become" suggests a changing situation in the future. I suppose the nearest we have is "going to".

Ich werde ein Auto kaufen. = I'm going to buy a car. (probably more idiomatic than: I shall buy a car.).

More idiomatic now - but there was a time when that option wasn't open. I don't know whether we or the French got there first.

English and German both had to invent a future; unfortiuately we chose a mixture of 'shall' and 'will' rather than a single verb, with the results you see displayed on this thread.

The main problem with the future is that it doesn't exist as a fact until it actually happens.

Yes, the Germanic languages were aware of this, but Latin didn't care - it just went ahead and spoke about the future anyway.

It is sometimes said that it was only when the Germanic languages came into contact with Latin that they began to think they would like a future tense of their own. I don't know how true that is.

[Beef Oven!]

"Thanks for the heads-up".

[Nick Armstrong]

"Thanks for the heads-up".

I'm sure I read that in a PM in the not too distant past...

[Beef Oven!]

I'm sure I read that in a PM in the not too distant past...

I think I read it in post #9 at 13.44 on the Humphrey Searle thread.

I think you are mistaken, ahinton. This centenary has passed by without any real mention.

However, as far as I'm concerned, I will dig out the couple of CDs that I have of his symphonies and give them a whirl.

Thanks for the heads-up!

[jean]

I think I read it in post #9 at 13.44 on the Humphrey Searle thread.

You might also have read it in post #2 here.

[Warlock]

"Wildlife habitat"

[Serial_Apologist]

"Wildlife habitat"

That seems all right to me.

[P. G. Tipps]

That seems all right to me.

It's strange what irritates some but not others ...

One of my own pet dislikes is when I hear one say ... 'I have great/huge respect for so-and-so .... '

That suggests to me that other poor so-and-sos, who are not understood by the respect-giver, are to be shown less or even no respect and when I have sometimes pointed this out to my nearest and dearest all I seem to get is a rather dismissive and thoroughly disrespectful glare.

[Pabmusic]

It's strange what irritates some but not others ...

One of my own pet dislikes is when I hear one say ... 'I have great/huge respect for so-and-so .... '

That suggests to me that other poor so-and-sos, who are not understood by the respect-giver, are to be shown less or even no respect and when I have sometimes pointed this out to my nearest and dearest all I seem to get is a rather dismissive and thoroughly disrespectful glare.

I agree, but probably because "I have a huge respect for..." is so often a trigger for "but...". Other such triggers are: "Don't get me wrong...", "With all due respect, ...", "I hear what you say...", "I don't mean to be rude, ..." and many more.