I shall be 17

[Jim Walker]

Reading through a French grammar of English the other day (it's my bedside reading, of course), I came across the statement to the effect that in the phrase:

I'll be 17 next month

the reduced 'll form was necessarily a hidden WILL, so to speak. Now, that's OK, so far, except that the justification for this conclusion was that "SHALL is absolutely impossible in this position", which to me is just plain wrong (I'm a British English speaker).

Would any of you out there share this judgement, that

I SHALL be 17 next month

is a definite no-no?

Any comments?

Regards

Jim

Dr. Jim Walker
Département d'Anglais
Université Lumière Lyon 2
86, rue Pasteur
69365 LYON Cedex 07

Tel. office +33 4 78 69 71 95
Fax office + 33 4 72 80 94 52 (please indicate my name)
Portable + 33 6 62 21 02 07

E-mail: Jim.Walker at univ-lyon2.fr


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