use of will and shall

[lemmen996]

Hello,

Today my son came home and asked me whether the following sentence was correct: 'Will we see you tomorrow?'

I am a teacher of English myself and I think there is nothing wrong with this sentence? However, my son said his teacher had told him that he should have used 'Shall' instead of 'Will' and that 'Will' was incorrect.

Just being curious. Who is right?

J. Lemmen

 

[Rover_KE]

In this sentence there is no difference.

Welcome to the board, lemmen.

Rover

 

[Raymott]

Hello,

Today my son came home and asked me whether the following sentence was correct: 'Will we see you tomorrow?'

I am a teacher of English myself and I think there is nothing wrong with this sentence? However, my son said his teacher had told him that he should have used 'Shall' instead of 'Will' and that 'Will' was incorrect.

Just being curious. Who is right?

J. Lemmen

A long time ago, the teacher would have been right.
These days, almost no one cares. (The answer might be different for BrE).

 

[Rover_KE]

These days, almost no one cares. (The answer might be different for BrE).

No - it's the same here.

Rover

 

[TheParser]

Hello,

Today my son came home and asked me whether the following sentence was correct: 'Will we see you tomorrow?'

I am a teacher of English myself and I think there is nothing wrong with this sentence? However, my son said his teacher had told him that he should have used 'Shall' instead of 'Will' and that 'Will' was incorrect.

Just being curious. Who is right?

J. Lemmen

********** NOT A TEACHER **********


Lemmen,

You can be very happy that your son has a good teacher who is

trying to teach him elegant, grammar-book English. I have

checked my books and discovered that the teacher is correct.

According to the rules (which most ordinary people no longer

even try to follow), one uses "shall" for I/we when referring to the

future; "will" when referring to volition (determination, etc.).

Here is a similar example from a scholarly grammar book:

Shall we have the pleasure of seeing you tomorrow?

*****

Here in the United States, people do not try to speak like that.

We use "will" for almost everything. (Shall is reserved for a few

situations.) Therefore -- according to American grammar -- your

sentence (using "will") is also correct.

*****

Many years ago, an English gentleman who wrote a famous book on

good English said that ordinary people like me could never learn to

use those two words correctly. He said that the only people who could

were those to the manner born. That is, one had to be born into an

upper-class British family where those two words were used naturally

and without thought.

I guess that if you want to see how those two words should be used,

you should try to read some speeches of Her Majesty, the Queen.

Presumably, she speaks (and hears within her family) the choicest of

English grammar.

********** NOT A TEACHER **********

 

[5jj]

I have checked my books and discovered that the teacher is correct.

English grammar.

Your books and the teacher are 'correct' only if they are referring to the language of a minority of speakers of BrE half a century ago.

 

[bhaisahab]

Your books and the teacher are 'correct' only if they are referring to the language of a minority of speakers of BrE half a century ago.

You are probably right but it comes naturally to me to use "shall", not always but very often. For example, I would always say "Shall I make tea?" but in the case of "Will/shall we see you tomorrow?" I would use both about equally.

 

[Barb_D]

Is there a difference in will/shall in the first person if the person is describing an intention (I shall come visit you tomorrow) and a question of simple future (Will I win the lottery?)?

If so, then "Shall I carry that for you?" and "Will I get to touch Lady Gaga's luggage when she comes to the hotel?" should have different verbs, right?

If not... well then, never mind!

 

[5jj]

You are probably right but it comes naturally to me to use "shall", not always but very often. For example, I would always say "Shall I make tea?" but in the case of "Will/shall we see you tomorrow?" I would use both about equally.

The 'correct' use of shall/will was beaten into me so effectively at school that I still use shall as Dr F T Wood prescribed.

However, I think that to say that 'Will we see you tomorrow?' is wrong is wrong. (That was a clumsy construction, but I like it.)

Incidentally, though I do not teach I/we shall as the correct form for referring to the future, I do present shall I/we...? as the form for a suggestion or offer.


[FONT=&quot]Wood, Frederick T (1954) The Groundwork of English Grammar, London: Macmillan[/FONT]

 

[Allen165]

You are probably right but it comes naturally to me to use "shall", not always but very often. For example, I would always say "Shall I make tea?" but in the case of "Will/shall we see you tomorrow?" I would use both about equally.

I may be wrong, but I think "Will I make tea?" and "Shall I make tea?" have different meanings. The former sounds like something out of a monologue; it's as if you're asking yourself whether you will make tea at some point in the future. On the other hand, "Shall I make tea?" seems to be another way of saying "Would you like me to make tea?"

 

[Allen165]

The 'correct' use of shall/will was beaten into me so effectively at school that I still use shall as Dr F T Wood prescribed.

However, I think that to say that 'Will we see you tomorrow?' is wrong is wrong. (That was a clumsy construction, but I like it.)

Incidentally, though I do not teach I/we shall as the correct form for referring to the future, I do present shall I/we...? as the form for a suggestion or offer.


[FONT=&quot]Wood, Frederick T (1954) The Groundwork of English Grammar, London: Macmillan[/FONT]

In everyday English you probably would't say "Will we see you tomorrow?" You'd say, "Are we gonna/going to see you tomorrow?," at least in North America.

 

[bhaisahab]

I may be wrong, but I think "Will I make tea?" and "Shall I make tea?" have different meanings. The former sounds like something out of a monologue; it's as if you're asking yourself whether you will make tea at some point in the future. On the other hand, "Shall I make tea?" seems to be another way of saying "Would you like me to make tea?"

I think that "Shall I make tea?" could also sound as if you were asking yourself.
I lived in the west of Ireland for twelve years and there they tend to use "will" in all situations, they would say, for example, "Will I make tea?" ,"Will I go and meet Seamus at the station?". In both of these examples "shall" is correct IMO, I also think that "Shall we see you tomorrow?" is correct but, perhaps because of my time in Ireland, I sometimes use "will".

 

[5jj]

One of the main problems here is that so many people use the forms in different ways, depending on where they come from and what sort of education they had. By 'what sort of education' I am not implying length or quality; I am thinking more of whether or not their teachers were disciples of F T Wood and his predecessors (who go at least as far back as John Wallis in his Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1652)).

Some of us feel the differences noted by Jasmin and Barb, others don't. The use of shall comes naturally to Bhaisahab, but he admits to using both shall and will about equally; I think I use shall consistently, but a person who listened attentively to me could probably discover that I don't.

I think that the teacher who labelled the work of lemmen's son as wrong was being subjective in his judgement, and wrong in being so. Unlike Parser, I would not be at all happy to find that my son was being taught grammar-book English; so many 'grammar books' are simply bad. 'Elegant' English is perhaps a term that should be discussed on another thread.

In this confused situation I chose, as I mentioned earlier, not to teach I/we shall as the correct form for referring to the future, and to present shall I/we...? as the form for a suggestion or offer. Whilst I claim neither that this is the perfect solution, nor that it will satisfy everybody, I feel that students following these guidelines will always be clearly understood and will upset none but a tiny minority of shallophiles.