shall vs will

[Offroad]

Dear teachers

Which one of these do you think sounds better?

The temperature is defined by the process and preferentially shall/will not be higher than 90°C.

Thank you

 

[emsr2d2]

I would use "preferably", not "preferentially" with "will". Alternatively, I would delete "prefertially" and use "should", not "shall/will".

I don't pretend to understand the meaning but, for me, it should read:

The temperature is defined by the process and, preferably, will not exceed 90 degrees C.
The temperature is defined by the process and should not exceed 90 degrees C.

 

[abaka]

If you are writing a specification and the temperature limit is an operational requirement, "shall" is exactly the correct word.

If you are writing a general description of equipment that has already been built to such an operational requirement, then "will" is correct.

If you are discussing environmental factors that make the temperature limit desirable, say "should", or "must" if it is an absolute necessity.

The world "preferential" implies "should" is the best word. But is it really a matter of preference?

 

[emsr2d2]

Surely it depends on whether or not the temperature going over that figure will actually be detrimental to something. If it won't, then the temperature ideally/preferably shouldn't go over that temperature.

If it is of vital importance that the temperature not exceed 90 degrees, then just say "the temperature must not exceed ..."

 

[billmcd]

Surely it depends on whether or not the temperature going over that figure will actually be detrimental to something. If it won't, then the temperature ideally/preferably shouldn't go over that temperature.

If it is of vital importance that the temperature not exceed 90 degrees, then just say "the temperature must not exceed ..."

I agree, and don't call him "Shirley".

 

[abaka]

The "don't call him Shirley" comment with eyes-roll is entirely inappropriate, whatever it was intended to convey.

 

[emsr2d2]

The "don't call him Shirley" comment with eyes-roll is entirely inappropriate, whatever it was intended to convey.

May I ask if you know the provenance of that phrase, abaka? It might have had nothing to do with the thread itself, but it wasn't "inappropriate" in the way most people think of that word (ie slightly offensive). It certainly made me laugh. I fully expect someone in my actual life or in writing to quote that, every time someone starts a sentence with "Surely" as I did.
As you said "whatever it was intended to convey", I will assume you don't know the quote so Google "Don't call him Shirley" and watch the first YouTube clip you find of Leslie Nielsen in Airplane.

 

[abaka]

I know the "provenance" of that phrase very well. Neither Neilsen nor Hays rolled their eyes. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did, but no one called him Shirley.

More to the point than "Shirley"-- and here I'm entirely serious -- was the eyes-roll.

I know the master gurus at LearningEnglish.com pride themselves on their disdain for texting English and all that, but let me give you a quick lesson about what the emoticon conveys in the real world -- which nowadays includes internet forums. It conveys exasperation. An inappropriate emotion.

 

[Barb_D]

Of course they didn't roll their eyes. That's the whole point of the humor - they played it entirely straight!

I think you need to worry less about correcting the interactions between forum members who have known each other a long time and are perfectly comfortable being the subject of some ribbing or the straight man in a comedic zinger.

 

[Tdol]

There is a point about the eyes-roll being used for exasperation. But David Cameron thought lol meant Lots of love. There is also a point about people using emoticons as they see them and not necessarily in the same way as the more standardised real virtual world, as seen in the first reply (not by the original eye-roller) which missed your point and went on about Airplane. I am sure no offence was meant and the eyes were rolling towards the Shirley part, but apologise for any taken. I have removed the offending smiley. I took Billmcd's comment as banter rather than an insult. I am sure that is what he meant. Asynchronous communication with novel forms like emoticons can lead to misunderstanding, but is there really a need to escalate things over this?

 

[emsr2d2]

As I am the person at whom the comment "Don't call him Shirley" and the eye-roll was aimed, I would like to point out that I was not in the least offended by it. I considered it to be funny, I had indeed started a sentence with "Surely" which, in my circles and many others, usually leads to someone saying "Don't call me Shirley".
I believe that the eye-roll was meant to be a prediction of my response to that line which, had it been replaced with a word, that word would have been "Groan", suggesting in a very light-hearted way that it was a terrible joke!

I concede that the emoticon eye-roll can be used to express exasperation but, as we say so often on this forum, context is everything and there was nothing in the thread or the comments to suggest any exasperation at all.

I may have misread Tdol's response above but I believe that it was my comment which is referred to as having "missed your point and went on about Airplane". I may have missed the point about the eye-roll but at that point I could see no reason to read the eye-roll as anything other than "Groan ... bad joke" so I rather glossed over it. Whenever a film or TV quote is mentioned in a thread, for any reason, we usually find that someone attempts to be helpful by pointing the readers (all of them) in the direction of an explanatory website or video. That was all I was trying to do. I believed from the wording that Abaka was not aware of the quote and had, therefore, simply not understood the original joke.

I do not want this to escalate either and as far as I was concerned it was, as Barb put it, "interaction between forum members who have known each other a long time and are perfectly comfortable being the subject of some ribbing or the straight man in a comedic zinger".

I too apologise for any perceived offence.