will/shall

[Arnold Zwicky]

larry horn, about "Shall we go?":
 >my point is that the "shall" in this case is less stylistically
 >marked than in the simple future uses.

true, but i believe there are very large numbers of american
speakers who don't use "shall" at all, even in these interrogative
suggestions, for which they use one of the other options people
(should i say "folks"?) have pointed out: "Let's go" or "D'ya
wanna go?" - or "Wanna go?" or "How about going?" or "Why don't
we go?" or various other possibilities.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)