I shall be 17

[ANNE V. GILBERT]

To all:

> As we've also discussed, it's not clear any naive speakers ever
> actually followed The Rule as it was prescribed.  For most
> contemporary U.S. English speakers, "shall" is pretty rare outside
> (and sometimes even inside) interrogative-form 1st person examples
> with a variety of uses.

I dutifully followed this "shall/will" thread, and some things leap out at
me.  First of all, I don't think I've heard anybody, anywhere, say anything
like "I SHALL be 17 next month".  At least not in the US.  I think the
"shall/will" distinction is pretty much gramattically "dead" here, although
I was taught the "shall/will" rule in high school too.  The other thing is,
are we talking about written or spoken expression?  If it's written, I
suppose it would be more "correct" to use "shall", although I've ever read
any US *writers* that actually still use this construction.  But I'm not a
professional linguist, so what do I know?
Anne Gilbert