Raymott’s answer (post #35), pretty well summed it up, but I will add a more verbose post.
First of all, I will make Lauralie happy by admitting that I cannot show her “a grammarian who agrees that 'if...will be -ing" is standard English”. This does not disturb me. As several members of this forum, including three British, an Australian and an American, all of whom have shown in repeated threads that they know something about the English language, have said that they are happy that it is standard English, then I go with Raymott: “Can you cite an authoritative source that explains why, "If you will be going ..." is not good English?”
Vgv8 asked (post #7): “Can you give an example of helpful sentence with if +will?” Raymott produced examples from Austen, Dickens and Wilde, and I produced examples from leading writers on grammar.
Lauralie wrote (post #8): “I have never heard "if you will be". It's new to me.” Three of Raymott’s sentences contained if+will be.
Lauralie wrote (post #20) “But relying on the grammaticality judgments of native speakers alone is not a reputable enough source. It's just bad teaching.”
Let’s just leave aside for one moment the fact that Lauralie has taken me to task in other threads for citing grammarians in support of my arguments, this is just a fatuous pair of statements. If a number of experienced native speakers with years of teaching experience feel that something is standard English, then it probably is. They, (we), do not need a grammarian to confirm what we observe every day. IF a leading grammarian writes that it is unacceptable (and nobody has produced such a grammarian yet!), then we may reconsider, but I for one reserve the right to believe that the grammarian (if we find one) may be mistaken.
When I began teaching over forty years ago, I told my students what I had read in most grammar and course books at the time – we can never use will in an if-clause. When my students pointed out that I said things such as “If you will leave your homework on my desk at the end of the lesson, I’ll get it back to you tomorrow”, I thought I was speaking incorrectly. After a lot of discussion and research, I realised that the grammar and course book were wrong. We can, and do, use will in the if-clause. We don’t normally use it to express pure futurity, but we do use it for a number of other reasons. In their attempts to stop students producing such (normally) unacceptable utterances as “If it will rain tomorrow, I will take my umbrella”, writers had over-simplified the situation. They were wrong. Those of us native speakers who used our own judgement in saying that will could be used in an if-clause, were right, as most grammars now accept.
For over a century, most serious writers on grammar have attempted to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. They note what people say, rather than what they should say (although some have fallen into the prescriptivist trap – the shall/will future and the “no will in the if-clause are two examples of this).
Raymott did just what other grammarians do – checked up on what people wrote, and found a number of example of will+BE+verb+ing. He wrote, “You’ll notice that I’ve weeded out obviously non-native sites, and yahoo chat sites etc. Many of these are government, university or health sites. If you don’t accept these as normal uses of the language, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree about what constitutes proper English.” I think that I’ll take what people write, and what Raymott, billmcd, bhaisahab, apex2000 and others and I accept. Oh, by the way, the Corpus of Contemporary American English records 46 examples of if+will+be, 16 of them being will+BE+verb+ing. People use it, and no authority has yet been produced to show they are wrong.
Most teachers who work with students at advanced levels would agree with Raymott: “Once you get to a certain level, you're pretty much on your own. If there was a simple advanced rule book that mandated which forms can be used, there would be no controversy - except perhaps from subversives who refused to speak legally.” At advanced levels, there are an almost infinite number of acceptable possibilities, far too many for any grammarian to stamp his/her approval on every one. The experienced teacher normally knows what is acceptable and what is not. In case of doubt, the experienced teacher turns to the grammar book. When the grammar book does not give a clear yea or nay, the experienced teacher turns to experienced colleagues, as we are doing in this thread.
If Lauralie, or anybody else, can produce a serious writer who claims that if+will+BE+verb+ing is not acceptable, then I will look at his/her arguments and consider them, but I feel no need to think that what Raymott, billmcd, bhaisahab, apex2000 and others (including me) are wrong because no authority has explicitly said that we are right. I feel a perverse sort of admiration for Lauralie, whose belief that she is right apparently needs no authority to support her.
We don’t need to prove we are right; all the evidence suggests we are not wrong. Produce one authority who suggests we are wrong, and I will rejoin the discussion. Till then, there is no need.
By the way: I don’t understand why my asking if Lauralie had an authority to support a claim was unprofessional, and her asking us if we have an authority is not. Perhaps we’d better continue that point by PM, so as not to sidetrack the main discussion.
