PhilGoetz comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 3 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Unnamed 30 August 2010 05:37AM

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Comment author: Sniffnoy 21 September 2010 10:47:55PM 1 point [-]

The change since Fowler has been to use ‘will’ in place of ‘shall’, not the other way around. I have read more than Fowler on ‘will’ vs ‘shall’, but I've never read anything to suggest that any dialect uses ‘shall’ with the third person in a declarative statement to mean the simple future.

The problem is that this isn't a "change since Fowler", since it predates him by centuries. Also really we shouldn't speak of using either in place of the other, since after all the original meaning of both of them became replaced with the meaning of just being a future marker. (Also this isn't exactly "grammar". :P )

I should be clear - I didn't downvote it simply because it was wrong as such, I downvoted it for spreading confusion about language when there's already a lot of that. :P

Comment author: TobyBartels 22 September 2010 05:27:48AM 1 point [-]

the original meaning of both of them became replaced with the meaning of just being a future marker

This is not correct. For further discussion, I refer you to Fowler. I will write no more on the subject, since I think that it's getting pretty far off-topic.