the death of shall

I just learned that the word shall is dead! Dead I tell you! Dead! OK, that is done.

I had always been taught that shall meant you have to do something and will means it is optional. If you do the work I shall pay you is a better deal than If you do the work I will pay you. Turns out the US supreme court, those silly people, decided that was too confusing and redefined shall to mean maybe. Sigh.

Fortunately, and I am impressed with this person’s title, the Plain Language Program Manager of the FAA has explained things:

So, shall is dead and good riddance! We shall in the future use only must and must not.
Finally, that is clear-will the rest of the world please get with the program?

It is a good day, I learned something new.

Shall shall be released.

I believe it’s ‘shall’ and ‘may’ not ‘shall’ and ‘will’. I see it in statutes all the time. “License shall be issued after applicant completes…” vs “License may be issued…”.

This is especially common with concealed carry permits. In a shall-issue state, once you get do what the state asks you to do (take a class, get a CCL etc), they shall (must) issue you a license. In may-issue, they can still deny the license even after you jump through their hoops.

FWIW, at least to my ears, ‘will’ doesn’t sound optional. “John may buy a car” sounds like he might, “John will buy a car” sounds like he will (for sure) buy one.

If that were to be the case, I would be disappointed.

Shall we dance?

I don’t think it’s mandatory.

Yeah, there’s nothing optional about “will.”

There’s something different depending on whether it’s applied in the first person, or in the second or third person.

In the first person,“shall” is a prediction and “will” an intention/compulsion. In the others, it’s the other way round.

“I shall drown, and no-one will save me”
“I will drown , and no-one shall save me”

“Shall” and “should” are a load of crud –
I take a pill, and only will.

[After Aldous Huxley]

I have heard this “rule” but I could never keep it straight, and I suspect lots of other people can’t either.

I sha’n’t be surprised.

I learned this too, and also couldn’t keep it straight. I furthermore deduced this was actually some grammatical rule that was created with malice.

Yet, we use “would” and “should” easily (and without the flip).

I kind of figure that “will” involves some kind of choice or intention, a use of the will itself, whereas shall does not. Then I flip them around, because that simple easy sensible explanation is backwards, because things suck in general.

That old distinction between first person and second/third person was silly.

The governmental rule doesn’t say “shall” is dead. It only says that it shouldn’t be used to indicate a legal mandate.

shall – originates in some kind of obligation
will – originates in desire or intent (used to be a form of “want”)
must – originates in a compulsion

In contemporary English shall and will are almost, but not quite, interchangeable. “Shall” is connected to “should” and can carry with it a connotation of “ought to.”

I often say “shall I?” to suggest to someone that I take a certain course of action. “Will I?” wouldn’t make sense in that context–It would be asking the person to make a prediction.

Indeed. Etymologically, “shall” can be traced back through Old English “sceal” (I/he “owe”/“will have to”/“ought to”) to proto-Germanic “skal-” (“to owe or be under obligation”). Related words in Germanic and Scandinavian languages also refer to debt, guilt, and obligation. By contrast, “will” may be traced to Old English “wyllan”, and thence to Indo-European root “wel-”, both meaning “to wish” or “to will”; wishing, choosing, and desiring are consistently dominant themes in words branching from this root.

I would note that Legal English is a distinct dialect from contemporary general English. As I understand it, the court ruling is about the use of “shall” as a term of art in Legal English, in which its distinction from “will” was formerly considered much sharper. This distinction is an artifact of the conservative nature of Legal English; of practical necessity, Legal English is more prescriptive than general English.

Indeed.
That’s why you make a last will and testament.

I wouldn’t call it a dialect so much as jargon for a specialized purpose. The government isn’t ruling on usage in the English language as a whole but rather determining how words are to be used and interpreted for legal purposes.

The key contrast here is against the word “may,” which is permissive. “May” is easily contested with “will,” “shall,” or “must,” which all can indicate obligation or compulsion in context.

In part, I refer to it as a dialect because it not only uses additional terminology not commonly understood in the parent language, but also assigns distinct meanings to words common to both. In the other part, I do it because “dialect” is used to refer to a variation on a programming language–and I often liken legalese to a programming language.

As the article states, “shall is a perfectly good word, but it’s not a perfectly good word of obligation.”

What’s interesting to me is that these once-related pairs now have diverging connotations –

will – would
shall – should
may – might

Can and could are still fairly close in meaning though.

The word “shall” is used in law all of the time and courts universally hold that the word has a mandatory connotation.

For example, if a law says, “If a person is at least 21 years old and completes a background check, the sheriff shall issue the person a concealed weapons permit” then the courts hold that the sheriff must issue the permit in those circumstances.

The meanings of modals (and periphrastic modals) can shift between interrogative and indicative, and between affirmative and negative, depending on the which function they are serving, and modals have various very distinct functions. They can express degrees of probability/certainty, obligation/prohibition, willingness/intent, advisability, and of course, they serve social purposes in speech, by modulating deference.

For example:He can’t speak French. (lack of ability)
He can’t be home. I just checked there. (impossibility)
She must not be home. (strong certainty)
You must not do that. (prohibition)
You could wear something different. (suggestion)
You couldn’t be serious! (certainty)
Could you ever live like that? (possibility)
Could you help me out? (social deference)
Etc.
So we can’t really say that any particular modal–including shall–carries a single, intrinsic or innate and immutable meaning. It’s all determined by the particular function, and how any given modal has evolved to serve that function.