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<div>At 1:19 PM -0500 1/25/01, Herb Stahlke wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>As recently as 1933, Jespersen wrote
(Essentials of English<br>
Grammar 274-5):<br>
<br>
"In the first person _will_ does not lend itself so well as
in<br>
the others to the expression of mere futurity, as _I will_ and _we<br>
will_ are so extensively and so naturally put in requisition to<br>
express volition, and as the other auxiliary, _shall_, has ome to<br>
be much used with _i_ and )we_ to express mere futurity. Still
_I<br>
(we) will_ is gaining ground in this function where
strict</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>grammarians prefer _shall_, and this
cannot be thought unnatural</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>...The style manuals PAT refers to may
simply be restating the<br>
prescriptive rule most of us learned at some time and
never</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>applied to our speech or writing.<br>
</blockquote>
<div>Talk about the stars being aligned. an hour ago I received
a message from Georgia Green, who is not an ads-l subscriber and has
no idea we've been talking about will/shall, that contains the
following information about Bishop Lowth, the famed 18th century
British prescriptivist:</div>
<div>================</div>
<div><font size="-1">Robert Lowth was a grumpy old man, worse
than Kilpatrick or Safire on their worst days, and he as much as
admits making up the shall/will rule:</font></div>
<div><font size="-1"> "_Will_ in the first
Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in the second and
third </font></div>
<div><font size="-1"> Persons only foretells:
_shall_ on the contrary, in the first Person simply fortells; in
the</font></div>
<div><font size="-1"> second and third
Persons commands or threatens."</font></div>
<div><font size="-1">Then there is a footnote:</font></div>
<div><font size="-1"> This distinction was not
observed formerly as to the word _shall_, which was used in
the </font></div>
<div><font size="-1"> Second and Third Persons to
express simply the event.</font></div>
<div><font size="-1">So, he's making it up!</font></div>
<div>=================</div>
<div>Sof if Georgia is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, it
is Bishop Lowth who...er, whom we have to thank for that immortal
contrast between</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>"I shall drown; no one will save
me!" [despairing accidental drownee]</div>
<div>"I will drown; no one shall save
me!" [determined suicide]</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>larry</div>
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