<mod>
I shall move this to GQ.
It shall be done.
</mod>
This weird difference between the first person and the other persons always struck me as needlessly arcane and perhaps a contributor to the decline of “shall.” Who needs such a complicated rule?
It’s my understanding that “hanged” and “hung” have different meanings.
Shall we batten down the hatches?
You shall be hanged for the misuse of hung…
I use shall, but shan’t doesn’t come up much. I shall use it more often.
I’d rather be hung than hanged.
You can be both-simultaneously!
Not to say that you shall…
I shall use “shall” and "shan’t the very next opportunity I have.
I often use shall. To me, it carries a little uncertainty. “When I take a shower, I will get wet.” No doubt at all. However, when somebody tells me to have a nice day, I say, “I shall.” I can’t be sure of it.
I don’t use shan’t at all. It sounds like it ought to be a contraction of “shat not.” I fear I would giggle, saying that. I took my dog for a walk, but she shan’t. 
:rolleyes:
Used in a declarative statement it’s odd enough that I take notice also, but I tend not to think of people as dorks because of a word they use.
Used interrogatively, more or less in place of “should”, it doesn’t sound nearly so odd. I might well say that, but then I might be just as likely to say “Do you want me to…” or “Should I…”.
Some dialects use constructions that seem even more odd. My father’s front office person for decades was a Scottish immigrant; if I tried to call him and he wasn’t available, she’d ask “Will I have him call you?”.
Gee, I don’t know. Surprise me why don’t you.
I do. Use “shall,” I mean.
Frank said it perfectly. I use “shall we?” all the time, I love the phrase. It rolls nicely off the tongue.
Besides, “Should we dance?” just isn’t as sexy anyway.
Usage notes for shall from American Heritage dictionary:
USAGE NOTE: The traditional rules for using shall and will prescribe a highly complicated pattern of use in which the meanings of the forms change according to the person of the subject. In the first person, shall is used to indicate simple futurity: I shall (not will) have to buy another ticket. In the second and third persons, the same sense of futurity is expressed by will: The comet will (not shall) return in 87 years. You will (not shall) probably encounter some heavy seas when you round the point. The use of will in the first person and of shall in the second and third may express determination, promise, obligation, or permission, depending on the context. Thus I will leave tomorrow indicates that the speaker is determined to leave; You and she shall leave tomorrow is likely to be interpreted as a command. The sentence You shall have your money expresses a promise (“I will see that you get your money”), whereas You will have your money makes a simple prediction. · Such, at least, are the traditional rules. But the distinction has never taken firm root outside of what H.W. Fowler described as “the English of the English” (as opposed to that of the Scots and Irish), and even there it has always been subject to variation. Despite the efforts of generations of American schoolteachers, the distinction is largely alien to the modern American idiom. In America will is used to express most of the senses reserved for shall in English usage, and shall itself is restricted to first person interrogative proposals, as in Shall we go? and to certain fixed expressions, such as We shall overcome. Shall is also used in formal style to express an explicit obligation, as in Applicants shall provide a proof of residence, though this sense is also expressed by must or should. In speech the distinction that the English signal by the choice of shall or will may be rendered by stressing the auxiliary, as in I will leave tomorrow (“I intend to leave”); by choosing another auxiliary, such as must or have to; or by using an adverb such as certainly. · Many earlier American writers observed the traditional distinction between shall and will, and some continue to do so. The practice cannot be called incorrect, though it may strike American ears as somewhat mannered. But the distinction is difficult for those who do not come by it natively, and Americans who essay a shall in an unfamiliar context run considerable risk of getting it wrong, and so of being caught out in that most embarrassing of linguistic gaffes, the bungled Anglicism.
An Englishwoman I knew had some rhyme or other that she learned in grammar school about “will” vs. “shall.” Does anyone here know it? (I don’t remember it.)
An unnecessarily complicated and, as a result, pointless distinction. If you want to save “shall” then you’ll have to abandon this nonsense.