# Shall we use shall? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012 "2010-03-27T12:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/21 "2010-03-28T03:38:59Z")
Use it all the time and it produces no reaction one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/22 "2010-03-28T04:05:54Z")
> [@Risha](#): > > I use it regularly, but I also use the words “moreover” and “thoroughfare” in casual conversation, so I might not be the best guide. Okay… what’s wrong with that? Or am I just strange, too? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/23 "2010-03-28T04:34:05Z")
Don’t use shall when should will suffice. Go ahead and use it in other situations, but keep an ear out for when “will” would replace it without a distinct change in meaning. I personally only use it when trying to sound erudite. Otherwise, I use should and will, whichever is the meaning I want. In growing up, I was taught that it is I shall, but you will. First person takes shall. Oh, and shan’t sounds weird. If you’re going to use a contractions, contract with the pronoun. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/24 "2010-03-28T05:05:41Z")
Should is good except: Shall we dance? vs. Should we dance? ---
**Author:** ![Risha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@Risha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Risha)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/25 "2010-03-28T06:36:13Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Okay… what’s wrong with that? Or am I just strange, too? Nothing at all, as far as I’m concerned. Many other people have assured me otherwise, though. ---
**Author:** ![Visual\_Purple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5daacb/32.png) [@Visual\_Purple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Visual_Purple)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/26 "2010-03-28T17:54:42Z")
I use it a lot in writing–but then, in law, it’s indispensable for indicating something that is mandatory. Conversationally, I think my main use of it is the “Shall we …?” that others have described, although I’m sure I occasionally use it for emphasis, too, in the “You shall not pass” way also mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/27 "2010-03-28T18:02:12Z")
Shall/Should Will/Would Can/Could They’re not the same meaning - and are only interchangeable in some contexts, one has not supplanted the other. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/28 "2010-03-28T18:02:47Z")
Urban planners _love_ “shall”. I tell those I supervise to use plain English whenever they can, though; “must” instead of “shall”, “use” instead of “utilize”, and so on. Last year, I wrote a legalese-free zoning code that doesn’t use the word “shall” once, except to say that “must” is the equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/29 "2010-03-28T18:07:31Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > I saw a comedian once do a bit on if James Brown had spoken grammatically correct English: > > _I feel well! > I knew that I shall!_ I don’t see anything correct there. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/30 "2010-03-28T18:07:50Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Don’t use shall when should will suffice. In legal English, “shall” indicates something that is mandatory, while “should” indicates something that is optional and suggested. There’s a big difference between the two. Still, I recommend “must” in place of “shall”, which has the same meaning but is plain English, and not so much a work of legal art. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/31 "2010-03-28T18:08:45Z")
Must is a fairly close equivalent, although it still conveys a different sense of meaning in many cases - consider Gandalf’s “You shall not pass” (mentioned upthread), for example - “You _must_ not pass” doesn’t mean the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/32 "2010-03-28T18:10:20Z")
I’m sure there are plenty of cases where _must_ is a better choice, though. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/33 "2010-03-28T18:34:28Z")
It’s news to me that _shall_ is passe. I use it all the time. (I’m 58 and grew up in New York City.) I don’t think that “shall” means the same as “should” in the example in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/34 "2010-03-28T19:30:27Z")
When I taught ESL in Europe, most all of the textbooks came from Britain and always had a chapter/section about “shall”. I told my students that in the US, few people use the word “shall” other than in a few cases (as mentioned in this thread). I doubt most people in the US would even know what “shan’t” meant, let alone use the word. Even though the words were not in the textbooks, I would also teach students: Gonna Wanna Gotta You can teach them correct English, but when they arrive in the US and someone says, “Hurry! I’m gonna go to the store 'cause I wanna buy wine and we gotta be at the party in 20 minutes.” - well, might as well also teach them what people actually say. And “shall” ain’t one of those words. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Why\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@The\_Why\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Why_Bird)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/35 "2010-03-28T19:54:41Z")
Another UK English speaker here - I use ‘shall’ all the time (though the word has lost all meaning since beginning this thread). I also use ‘shan’t’. So there. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/36 "2010-03-29T01:04:00Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Shall/Should > Will/Would > Can/Could > > They’re not the same meaning - and are only interchangeable in some contexts, one has not supplanted the other. That’s what I came to say. They aren’t the same. But in some situations the subtleties in meaning don’t really matter. If I’m asking my husband about if he wants a cup of coffee, it doesn’t really matter if I say “Should I make you a cop of coffee?” or “Shall I make you a cup of coffee?” The answer is still going to be “YES!!” ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/37 "2010-03-29T01:29:31Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > I don’t see anything correct there. “I knew that I shall” makes no sense, because shall is present tense and knew in past tense, but “I feel well” is correct, because ‘well’, an adverb, modifies ‘to feel’. Compare “I’m doing good” / “I’m doing well”. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/38 "2010-03-29T01:52:50Z")
> [@Risha](#): > > However, the others are right that “should we go to dinner now?” does not mean the same thing as “shall we go to dinner now?”. Actually, I can’t even think of a good way to rephrase without the “shall”. “Are we ready to leave [for dinner] now?” or perhaps “Do you want to go to dinner now?” You could probably make it a statement by saying “let’s go [to dinner now],” or “let’s leave [for dinner] now,” and retain a close enough meaning. None of the above are precisely equivilent, but close enough for all practical purposes. Shall, to me at least, invokes the immediate and only would be used in the case where the topic in question has already been brought up. Now is redundant in the original sentence. A sample conversation would be: “Are we going to dinner?” “Yeah, oh let me get my bag.” “Okay” “Got it.” “Shall we go?” I would not interchange the two phrases involving leaving for dinner even if rephrased. Shall requires that the event in question has already been established. “Shall we go to dinner?” in the first slot sounds to me that some time (perhaps earlier in the day) Alice and Bob had already discussed going to dinner, “Are we going to dinner?” in the last slot sounds demanding, sort of “God, are you finished getting ready yet?” ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/39 "2010-03-29T01:55:57Z")
> [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > “I knew that I shall” makes no sense, because shall is present tense and knew in past tense, but “I feel well” is correct, because ‘well’, an adverb, modifies ‘to feel’. Compare “I’m doing good” / “I’m doing well”. Yes, but JB clearly meant “good” in the sense of “pleasant” or “comfortable”. He didn’t mean that his tactile sense was sharp. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012/40 "2010-03-29T02:00:48Z")
I shan’t interchange should and shall. No one else should, either 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-we-use-shall/534012.md?page=3)