''Shall'' and ''will'' are two of the
English modal verbs
The English modal verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participle ...
. They have various uses, including the expression of propositions about the
future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
, in what is usually referred to as the
future tense
In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...
of English.
Historically,
prescriptive grammar
Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes info ...
stated that, when expressing pure futurity (without any additional meaning such as desire or command), ''shall'' was to be used when the subject was in the
first person, and ''will'' in other cases (e.g., "On Sunday, we shall go to church, and the preacher will read the Bible.") This rule is no longer commonly adhered to by any group of English speakers, and ''will'' has essentially replaced ''shall'' in nearly all contexts.
''Shall'' is, however, still widely used in bureaucratic documents, especially documents written by lawyers. Owing to heavy misuse, its meaning can be ambiguous and the
United States government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
's
Plain Language
Plain language is writing designed to ensure the reader understands as quickly, easily, and completely as possible. Plain language strives to be easy to read, understand, and use. It avoids verbose, convoluted language and jargon. In many countri ...
group advises writers not to use the word at all.
Other legal drafting experts, including Plain Language advocates, argue that while ''shall'' can be ambiguous in
statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...
s (which most of the cited litigation on the word's interpretation involves),
court rules, and consumer contracts, that reasoning does not apply to the language of business contracts.
[Kenneth Adams]
"Making Sense of 'Shall'"
''New York Law Journal'', October 18, 2007. These experts recommend using ''shall'' but only to impose an obligation on a contractual party that is the subject of the sentence, i.e., to convey the meaning "hereby has a duty to."
[
]
Etymology
The verb ''shall'' derives from Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''sceal''. Its cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s in other Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
include Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
''skal'', German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
''soll'', and Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''zal''; these all represent *''skol-'', the o-grade
The Ordinary Grade (commonly known as the "O-Grade") of the Scottish Certificate of Education is a now-discontinued qualification which was studied for as part of the Scottish secondary education system. It could be considered broadly equivalent ...
of Indo-European *''skel''-. All of these verbs function as auxiliaries
Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, u ...
, representing either simple futurity, or necessity or obligation.
The verb ''will'' derives from Old English ''willan'', meaning to want or wish. Cognates include Old Norse ''vilja'', German ''wollen'' (ich/er/sie will, meaning I/he/she want/s to), Dutch ''willen'', Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
''wiljan''. It also has relatives in non-Germanic languages, such as Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''velle'' ("wish for") and ''voluptas'' ("pleasure"), and Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
''woleć'' ("prefer"). All of these forms derive from the e-grade or o-grade of Indo-European *''wel-'', meaning to wish for or desire. Within English, the modal verb ''will'' is also related to the noun ''will'' and the regular lexical verb ''will'' (as in "She willed him on").
Early Germanic did not inherit any Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
forms to express the future tense
In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...
, and so the Germanic languages have innovated by using auxiliary verbs to express the future (this is evidenced in Gothic and in the earliest recorded Germanic expressions). In English, ''shall'' and ''will'' are the auxiliaries that came to be used for this purpose. (Another one used as such in Old English was ''mun'', which is related to Scots ''maun'', Modern English ''must'' and Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''moet'')
Derived forms and pronunciation
Both ''shall'' and ''will'' come from verbs that had the preterite-present
The Germanic language family is one of the language groups that resulted from the breakup of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It in turn divided into North, West and East Germanic groups, and ultimately produced a large group of mediaeval and modern lan ...
conjugation in Old English (and generally in Germanic), meaning that they were conjugated using the strong preterite form (i.e. the usual past tense form) as the present tense
The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...
. Because of this, like the other modal verbs
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the b ...
, they do not take the usual ''-s'' in Modern English's third-person singular present; we say ''she shall'' and ''he will'' – not *''she shalls'', and not *''he wills'' (except in the sense of "to will" being a synonym of "to want" or "to write into a will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
"). Archaically, there were however the variants ''shalt'' and ''wilt'', which were used with thou
The word ''thou'' is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word ''you'', although it remains in use in parts of Northern England and in Scots (). ''Thou'' is the ...
.
Both verbs also have their own preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
(past) forms, namely ''should'' and ''would'', which derive from the actual preterites of the Old English verbs (made using the dental suffix that forms the preterites of weak verbs). These forms have developed a range of meanings, frequently independent of those of ''shall'' and ''will'' (as described in the section on ''should'' and ''would'' below). Aside from this, though, ''shall'' and ''will'' (like the other modals) are defective verb
In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb that either lacks a conjugated form or entails incomplete conjugation, and thus cannot be conjugated for certain grammatical tenses, aspects, persons, genders, or moods that the majority of verbs or ...
s – they do not have other grammatical forms such as infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s, imperatives or participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s. (For instance, ''I want to will eat something'' or ''He's go to sleep'' do not exist.)
Both ''shall'' and ''will'' may be contracted to ''-’ll'', most commonly in affirmative statements where they follow a subject pronoun. Their negation
In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and false ...
s, ''shall not'' and ''will not'', also have contracted forms: ''shan't'' and ''won't'' (although ''shan't'' is rarely used in North America, and is becoming rarer elsewhere too).
The pronunciation of ''will'' is , and that of ''won't'' is . However ''shall'' has distinct weak and strong pronunciations: when unstressed, and when stressed. ''Shan't'' is pronounced in England, New Zealand, South Africa etc.; in North America (if used) it is pronounced , and both forms are acceptable in Australia (due to the unique course of the trap–bath split
The – split is a Phonological change#Phonemic splits, vowel split that occurs mainly in English language in Southern England, Southern English English, English in England (including Received Pronunciation), Australian English, New Zealand Engl ...
).
Specific uses of ''shall'' or ''will''
The modal verbs
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the b ...
''shall'' and ''will'' have been used in the past, and continue to be used, in a variety of meanings. Although when used purely as future markers they are largely interchangeable (as will be discussed in the following sections), each of the two verbs also has certain specific uses in which it cannot be replaced by the other without change of meaning.
The most common specific use of ''shall'' in everyday English is in questions that serve as offers or suggestions: "Shall I ...?" or "Shall we ...?" These are discussed under below.
In statements, ''shall'' has the specific use of expressing an order or instruction, normally in elevated or formal register
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), the ...
. This use can blend with the usage of ''shall'' to express futurity, and is therefore discussed in detail below under .
''Will'' (but not ''shall'') is used to express habitual action, often (but not exclusively) action that the speaker finds annoying:
*He will bite his nails, whatever I say.
*He will often stand on his head.
Similarly, ''will'' is used to express something that can be expected to happen in a general case, or something that is highly likely at the present time:
*A coat will last two years when properly cared for.
*That will be Mo at the door.
The other main specific implication of ''will'' is to express willingness, desire or intention. This blends with its usage in expressing futurity, and is discussed under . For its use in questions about the future, see .
Uses of ''shall'' and ''will'' in expressing futurity
Both ''shall'' and ''will'' can be used to mark a circumstance as occurring in future time; this construction is often referred to as the future tense
In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...
of English. For example:
* Will they be here tomorrow?
* I shall grow old some day.
* Shall we go for dinner?
When ''will'' or ''shall'' directly governs the infinitive of the main verb, as in the above examples, the construction is called the simple future
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations of s ...
. Future marking can also be combined with aspectual marking to produce constructions known as future progressive
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations of s ...
("He will be working"), future perfect
The future perfect is a verb form or construction used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before a time of reference in the future, such as ''will have finished'' in the English sentence "I will have finished by tomorrow." ...
("He will have worked") and future perfect progressive
This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes:
* Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went''
* Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone''
* Combinations of s ...
("He will have been working"). English also has other ways of referring to future circumstances, including the ''going to'' construction, and in many cases the ordinary present tense
The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...
– details of these can be found in the article on the ''going-to'' future.
The verbs ''will'' and ''shall'', when used as future markers, are largely interchangeable with regard to literal meaning. Generally, however, ''will'' is far more common than ''shall''. Use of ''shall'' is normally a marked usage, typically indicating formality and/or seriousness and (if not used with a first person subject) expressing a colored meaning as described below. In most dialects of English, the use of ''shall'' as a future marker is viewed as archaic.
''Will'' is ambiguous in first-person statements, and ''shall'' is ambiguous in second- and third-person statements. A rule of prescriptive grammar
Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes info ...
was created to remove these ambiguities
Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement ...
, but it requires that the hearer or reader understand the rule followed by the speaker or writer, which is usually not the case. According to this rule, when expressing futurity and nothing more, the auxiliary ''shall'' is to be used with first person subjects (''I'' and ''we''), and ''will'' is to be used in other instances. Using ''will'' with the first person or ''shall'' with the second or third person is asserted to indicate some additional meaning in addition to plain futurity. In practice, however, this rule is not observed – the two auxiliaries are used interchangeably, with ''will'' being far more common than ''shall''. This is discussed in more detail in the following sections.
Prescriptivist distinction
According to ''Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'' is a usage dictionary published by Merriam-Webster, Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts . It is currently available in a reprint edition (1994) or . (The 1989 edition did not include ''Merriam-'' i ...
'', the distinction between ''shall'' and ''will'' as future markers arose from the practice of Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
teaching in English schools in the 14th century. It was customary to use ''will'' to translate the Latin ''velle'' (meaning to wish, want or intend); this left ''shall'' (which had no other equivalent in Latin) to translate the Latin future tense
In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...
. This practice kept ''shall'' alive in the role of future marker; it is used consistently as such in the Middle English Wycliffe's Bible
Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of English theologian John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translati ...
. However, in the common language it was ''will'' that was becoming predominant in that role. Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
normally uses ''will'' to indicate the future, regardless of grammatical person
In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others (third pers ...
.
An influential proponent of the prescriptive rule that ''shall'' is to be used as the usual future marker in the first person was John Wallis
John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal ...
. In ''Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae'' (1653) he wrote: "The rule is ..to express a future event without emotional overtones, one should say I shall, we shall, but you/he/she/they will; conversely, for emphasis, willfulness, or insistence, one should say I/we will, but you/he/she/they shall".
Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his work on the ''Con ...
wrote in his book ''The King's English'' (1906), regarding the rules for using ''shall'' vs. ''will'', the comment "the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen ... is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it". The ''Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage'', OUP
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2002, says of the rule for the use of ''shall'' and ''will'': "it is unlikely that this rule has ever had any consistent basis of authority in actual usage, and many examples of ritishEnglish in print disregard it".
Nonetheless, even among speakers (the majority) who do not follow the rule about using ''shall'' as the unmarked form in the first person, there is still a tendency to use ''shall'' and ''will'' to express different shades of meaning (reflecting aspects of their original Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
senses). Thus ''shall'' is used with the meaning of obligation, and ''will'' with the meaning of desire or intention.
An illustration of the supposed contrast between ''shall'' and ''will'' (when the prescriptive rule is adhered to) appeared in the 19th century, and has been repeated in the 20th century and in the 21st:
* I shall drown; no one will save me! (expresses the expectation of drowning, simple expression of future occurrence)
* I will drown; no one shall save me! (expresses suicidal intent: first-person ''will'' for desire, third-person ''shall'' for "command")
An example of this distinction in writing occurs in Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
's 1893 short story ''The Middle Years
"The Middle Years" is a short story by Henry James, first published in ''Scribner's Magazine'' in 1893. The novelist in the tale speculates that he has spent his whole life learning how to write, so a second life would make sense, "to apply the l ...
'':
:"Don't you know?—I want to what they call 'live.'"
:The young man, for good-by, had taken his hand, which closed with a certain force. They looked at each other hard a moment. "You ''will'' live," said Dr. Hugh.
:"Don't be superficial. It's too serious!"
:"You ''shall'' live!" Dencombe's visitor declared, turning pale.
:"Ah, that's better!" And as he retired the invalid, with a troubled laugh, sank gratefully back.
A more popular illustration of the use of "shall" with the second person to express determination occurs in the oft-quoted words the fairy godmother
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother () is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies. In Perrault's ''Cinderella'', he concludes the tale with ...
traditionally says to Cinderella
"Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...
in British versions of the well-known fairy tale: "You ''shall'' go to the ball, Cinderella!"
Another popular illustration is in the dramatic scene from '' The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' when Gandalf
Gandalf is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is a Wizards (Middle-earth), wizard, one of the ''Istari'' order, and the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring (characters), Fellowship of t ...
checks the Balrog
A Balrog () is a powerful demonic monster in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. One first appeared in print in his high-fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings'', where the Fellowship of the Ring (characters), Fellowship of the Ring encounter a Bal ...
's advance with magisterial censure, "You shall not pass!"
The use of ''shall'' as the usual future marker in the first person nevertheless persists in some more formal or elevated register
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), the ...
s of English. An example is provided by the famous speech of Winston Churchill: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.'"
Colored uses
Whether or not the above-mentioned prescriptive rule (''shall'' for the unmarked future in the first person) is adhered to, there are certain meanings in which either ''will'' or ''shall'' tends to be used rather than the other. Some of these have already been mentioned (see the Specific uses section). However, there are also cases in which the meaning being expressed combines plain futurity with some additional implication; these can be referred to as "colored" uses of the future markers.
Thus ''shall'' may be used (particularly in the second and third persons
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
) to imply a command, promise or threat made by the speaker (i.e. that the future event denoted represents the will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
of the speaker rather than that of the subject
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
). For example:
*You shall regret it before long. (speaker's threat)
*You shall not pass! (speaker's command)
*You ''shall'' go to the ball. (speaker's promise)
In the above sentences, ''shall'' might be replaced by ''will'' without change of intended meaning, although the form with ''will'' could also be interpreted as a plain statement about the expected future. The use of ''shall'' is often associated with formality and/or seriousness, in addition to the coloring of the meaning. For some specific cases of its formal use, see the sections below on and .
(Another, generally archaic, use of ''shall'' is in certain dependent clause
A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...
s with future reference, as in "The prize is to be given to whoever shall have done the best." More normal here in modern English is the simple present tense: "whoever does the best"; see .)
On the other hand, ''will'' can be used (in the first person) to emphasize the willingness, desire or intention of the speaker:
*I will lend you £10,000 at 5% (the speaker is willing to make the loan, but it will not necessarily be made)
*I will have my way.
Most speakers have ''will'' as the future marker in any case, but when the meaning is as above, even those who follow or are influenced by the prescriptive rule would tend to use ''will'' (rather than the ''shall'' that they would use with a first person subject for the uncolored future).
The division of uses of ''will'' and ''shall'' is somewhat different in questions than in statements; see the following section for details.
Questions
In questions, the traditional prescriptive usage is that the auxiliary used should be the one expected in the answer. Hence in enquiring factually about the future, one could ask: "Shall you accompany me?" (to accord with the expected answer "I shall", since the rule prescribes ''shall'' as the uncolored future marker in the first person). To use ''will'' instead would turn the question into a request. In practice, however, ''shall'' is almost never used in questions of this type. To mark a factual question as distinct from a request, the ''going-to'' future (or just the present tense) can be used: "Are you going to accompany me?" (or "Are you accompanying me?").
The chief use of ''shall'' in questions is with a first person subject (''I'' or ''we''), to make offers and suggestions, or request suggestions or instructions:
* Shall I open a window?
* Shall we dance?
* Where shall we go today?
* What shall I do next?
This is common in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world; it is also found in the United States, but there ''should'' is often a less marked alternative. Normally the use of ''will'' in such questions would change the meaning to a simple request for information: "Shall I play goalkeeper?" is an offer or suggestion, while "Will I play goalkeeper?" is just a question about the expected future situation.
The above meaning of ''shall'' is generally confined to direct questions with a first person subject. In the case of a reported question (even if not reported in the past tense), ''shall'' is likely to be replaced by ''should'' or another modal verb such as ''might'': "She is asking if she should open a window"; "He asked if they might dance."
The auxiliary ''will'' can therefore be used in questions either simply to enquire about what is expected to occur in the future, or (especially with the second person subject ''you'') to make a request:
* Where will tomorrow's match be played? (factual enquiry)
* Will the new director do a good job? (enquiry for opinion)
* Will you marry me? (request)
Legal and technical use
US legal system
Bryan Garner
Bryan Andrew Garner (born 1958) is an American lawyer, lexicographer, and teacher who has written more than two dozen books about English usage and style such as ''Garner's Modern English Usage'' for a general audience, and others for legal profe ...
and Justice Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectua ...
in ''Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts'' describe that some legal drafting has sloppy use of the word "shall". Nevertheless, Garner and Scalia conclude that when the word "shall" can reasonably be understood as mandatory, it ought to be taken that way. In 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
said ("The word `shall' generally indicates a command that admits of no discretion on the part of the person instructed to carry out the directive"); Black's Law Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. 1990) ("As used in statutes ... this word is generally imperative or mandatory").
Legislative acts and contracts sometimes use "shall" and "shall not" to express mandatory action and prohibition. However, it is sometimes used to mean "may" or "can". The most famous example of both of these uses of the word "shall" is the . Claims that "shall" is used to denote a fact, or is not used with the above different meanings, have caused discussions and have significant consequences for interpreting the text's intended meaning. Lawsuits over the word's meaning are also common.
Technical contexts
In many requirement specifications, particularly involving software, the words ''shall'' and ''will'' have special meanings. Most requirement specifications use the word ''shall'' to denote something that is required, while reserving the ''will'' for simple statement about the future (especially since "going to" is typically seen as too informal for legal contexts). However, some documents deviate from this convention and use the words ''shall'', ''will'', and ''should'' to denote the strength of the requirement. Some requirement specifications will define the terms at the beginning of the document.
Shall and will are distinguished by NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
and Wikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project that supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from Wikipedia in that it offers tutorials and other materials for the fostering of learning, rather ...
as follows:
*''Shall'' is usually used to state a device or system's requirements. For example: "The selected generator shall provide a minimum of 80 Kilowatts."
*''Will'' is generally used to state a device or system's purpose. For example, "The new generator will be used to power the operations tent."
On standards published by International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(ISO), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), requirements with "shall" are the mandatory requirements, meaning, "must", or "have to". The IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and a ...
(Internet Engineering Task Force) defines ''shall'' and ''must'' as synonymous terms denoting absolute requirements, and ''should'' as denoting a somewhat flexible requirement, in RFC
RFC may refer to:
Computing
* Request for Comments, a memorandum on Internet standards
* Request for change, change management
* Remote Function Call, in SAP computer systems
* Rhye's and Fall of Civilization, a modification for Sid Meier's Civ ...
documents.
On specifications and standards published by the United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
(DoD), requirements with "shall" are the mandatory requirements. (“Must” shall not be used to express mandatory provisions. Use the term “shall.”) “Will” declares intent or simple futurity, and “should” and “may” express nonmandatory provisions.
Outside DoD, other parts of the U.S. government advise against using the word ''shall'' for three reasons: it lacks a single clear meaning, it causes litigation, and it is nearly absent from ordinary speech. The legal reference ''Words and Phrases'' dedicates 76 pages to summarizing hundreds of lawsuits that centered around the meaning of the word shall. When referencing a legal or technical requirement, ''Words and Phrases'' instead favors ''must'' while reserving ''should'' for recommendations.
''Should'' and ''would''
As noted above, ''should'' and ''would'' originated as the preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
(past tense) forms of ''shall'' and ''will''. In some of their uses they can still be identified as past (or conditional) forms of those verbs, but they have also developed some specific meanings of their own.
Independent uses
The main use of ''should'' in modern English is as a synonym of '' ought to'', expressing quasi-obligation, appropriateness, or expectation (it cannot be replaced by ''would'' in these meanings). Examples:
* You should not say such things. (it is wrong to do so)
* He should move his pawn. (it is appropriate to do so)
* Why should you suspect me? (for what reason is it proper to suspect me?)
* You should have enough time to finish the work. (a prediction)
* I should be able to come. (a prediction, implies some uncertainty)
* There should be some cheese in the kitchen. (expectation)
Other specific uses of ''should'' involve the expression of irrealis mood
In linguistics, irrealis moods (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contras ...
:
* in condition clauses (protasis
In drama, a protasis is the introductory part of a play, usually its first act. The term was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate parts, the other two being epitasis and ...
), e.g. "If it should rain" or "Should it rain"; see English conditional sentences
Prototypical conditional sentences in English are those of the form ''"If X, then Y".'' The clause ''X'' is referred to as the ''antecedent'' (or ''protasis''), while the clause ''Y'' is called the ''consequent'' (or ''apodosis''). A conditional ...
* as an alternative to the subjunctive, e.g. "It is important that he (should) leave"; see English subjunctive
While the English language lacks distinct inflections for mood, an English subjunctive is recognized in most grammars. Definition and scope of the concept vary widely across the literature, but it is generally associated with the description of ...
The main use of ''would'' is in conditional clauses (described in detail in the article on English conditional sentences
Prototypical conditional sentences in English are those of the form ''"If X, then Y".'' The clause ''X'' is referred to as the ''antecedent'' (or ''protasis''), while the clause ''Y'' is called the ''consequent'' (or ''apodosis''). A conditional ...
):
*I would not be here if you hadn't summoned me.
In this use, ''would'' is sometimes (though rarely) replaced by ''should'' when the subject is in the first person (by virtue of the same prescriptive rule that demands ''shall'' rather than ''will'' as the normal future marker for that person). This ''should'' is found in stock phrases such as "I should think" and "I should expect". However its use in more general cases is old-fashioned or highly formal, and can give rise to ambiguity with the more common use of ''should'' to mean ''ought to''. This is illustrated by the following sentences:
* You would apologize if you saw him. (pure conditional, stating what would happen)
* You should apologize if you see him. (states what would be proper)
* I would apologize if I saw him. (pure conditional)
* I should apologize if I saw him. (possibly a formal variant of the above, but may be understood to be stating what is proper)
In archaic usage ''would'' has been used to indicate present time desire. "Would that I were dead" means "I wish I were dead". "I would fain" means "I would gladly".
More details of the usage of ''should'', ''would'' and other related auxiliaries can be found in the article on English modal verbs
The English modal verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participle ...
.
As past of ''shall'' and ''will''
When ''would'' and ''should'' function as past tenses of ''will'' and ''shall'', their usage tends to correspond to that of the latter verbs (''would'' is used analogously to ''will'', and ''should'' to ''shall'').
Thus ''would'' and ''should'' can be used with "future-in-the-past
The future in the past is a grammatical tense where the time reference is in the future with respect to a vantage point that is itself in the past. In English, future in the past is not always considered separate tense, but rather as either a subca ...
" meaning, to express what was expected to happen, or what in fact did happen, after some past time of reference. The use of ''should'' here (like that of ''shall'' as a plain future marker) is much less common and is generally confined to the first person. Examples:
*He left Bath in 1890, and would never return. (in fact he never returned after that)
*It seemed that it would rain. (rain was expected)
*Little did I know that I would (''rarer:'' should) see her again the very next day.
''Would'' can also be used as the past equivalent of ''will'' in its other specific uses, such as in expressing habitual actions (see English markers of habitual aspect#Would):
* Last summer we would go fishing a lot. (i.e. we used to
The habitual aspect is a form of expression connoting repetition or continuous existence of a state of affairs. In standard English, for the present time there is no special grammatical marker for the habitual; the simple present is used, as in ' ...
go fishing a lot)
In particular, ''would'' and ''should'' are used as the past equivalents of ''will'' and ''shall'' in indirect speech
In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming'' i ...
reported in the past tense:
*The ladder will fall. → He said that the ladder would fall.
*You shall obey me! → He said that I should obey him.
*I shall go swimming this afternoon. → I said that I should go swimming in the afternoon.
As with the conditional use referred to above, the use of ''should'' in such instances can lead to ambiguity; in the last example it is not clear whether the original statement was ''shall'' (expressing plain future) or ''should'' (meaning "ought to"). Similarly "The archbishop said that we ''should'' all sin from time to time" is intended to report the pronouncement that "We ''shall'' all sin from time to time" (where ''shall'' denotes simple futurity), but instead gives the highly misleading impression that the original word was ''should'' (meaning "ought to").
See also
*English verbs
Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed perip ...
*Grammatical person
In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others (third pers ...
* Verbs in English Grammar (wikibook)
References
External links
On the Use of the Verbs ''shall'' and ''will''
By Professor De Morgan
On the Use of Shall and Will
By Hensleigh Wedgwood
Hensleigh Wedgwood (21 January 1803 – 2 June 1891) was a British etymologist, philologist and barrister, author of ''A Dictionary of English Etymology''. He was a cousin of Charles Darwin, whom his sister Emma Darwin, Emma married in 1839.
Earl ...
, Esq.
"Shall and Will". Fowler, H. W. 1908. ''The King's English''
- thorough discussion on the subject
Complete descriptions of the English Tenses
Webster 1913 - Entry for ''Shall''
- quoting ''The Origins and Development of the English Language'', Pyles and Algeo, 1993
The Rise of Prescriptivism in English
(PDF format)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shall And Will
English grammar
Verbs
English words