# What word is "will"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192 "2006-01-16T04:39:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/1 "2006-01-16T04:39:11Z")
As in, “I will go to the store tomorrow.” A friend says it is the future tense of “to be” but that doesn’t sound right to my ungrammatical ear. Is it “to be” or just a weird mutant word by itself? ---
**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:** [January 16, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/2 "2006-01-16T04:49:45Z")
Merriam Webster: [will](http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/will) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/3 "2006-01-16T04:49:57Z")
It’s a [modal auxiliary verb.](http://www.ssdd.uce.ac.uk/learner/grammar/modals.htm) Google on the phrase for more info. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/4 "2006-01-16T08:45:17Z")
> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#): > > As in, “I will go to the store tomorrow.” A friend says it is the future tense of “to be” but that doesn’t sound right to my ungrammatical ear. Is it “to be” or just a weird mutant word by itself? It’s now just a modal verb - one that changes the mood of the main verb. It has its origins in a perfectly normal verb - “to will”, as in “She willed it so”. At least that’s the story I’ve heard. It originally expressed volition; “I will go to the store” meant, more or less, “I want to go to the store”, but the emotional significance disappeared and it simply became a modal that marked future time. It’s not from a future tense of “be” - English doesn’t have a true inflectional future tense. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/5 "2006-01-16T13:40:54Z")
It’s one of a small class of verbs in English that are only used as auxilliaries, and which lack some of the forms that normal verbs have (including an infinitive form). Examples are (I don’t think this list is complete, but it’s pretty close): can / could may / might shall / should will / would Note that all have a present and past tense – I don’t think any English verbs exist in just one tense – though the meaning might vary a little between those two tenses. “Will” has a present participle too, “willing”, unlike the others, used in phrases like “God willing”. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/6 "2006-01-16T14:28:55Z")
Something about the explanation of “will” on that link doesn’t make sense. It its example of “Insistence; habitual behaviour” it says: > [@](#): > > I’m not surprised you don’t know what to do! You will keep talking in class. Is this right? To me, this sentence has two possible meanings: 1. The first sentence is present tense (“I am not surprised”) while the second sentence is a future prediction (“You will keep talking”.) If the second sentence is meant to explain the first, shouldn’t “will” be left out of it altogether? 2. The first sentence is present tence, and the second sentence is a command (“You _will_ keep talking”.) This makes even less sense. So what’s up with this? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/7 "2006-01-16T14:35:36Z")
**Mindfield** , that usage sounds like archaic UK English - circa Enid Blyton/Evelyn Waugh. In that context it is indeed descriptive of habitual behaviour. I have a hangover because I will keep drinking. I have a hangover because I [habitually] keep drinking. Not many people use this form anymore, but people of my grandparents’ age do sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/8 "2006-01-16T15:59:04Z")
Ah! That would explain why it sounds odd to my Under-40 Canadian-bred ears. Was there a reason for this usage in archaic UK English? It seems frivolous even in that context – the sentence just seems not to call for a modal verb at all. Was not necessarily used as a modal verb but instead served some other purpose? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/9 "2006-01-16T16:47:27Z")
At one time, English (on both sides of the Atlantic) made a distinction between simple futurity and determined intent. The forms for simple futurity were “I/we shall” and “you/he/she/it/they will,” and the forms for intent were “I/we will” and “you/he/she/it/they shall.” Beginning around World War II (and intensified by Douglas MacArthur’s grammatically accurate but misunderstood “I shall return”) and continuing apace to the present, that distinction has been eroded away, to the point where even the most precisionist of speakers will often fail to make the distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/10 "2006-01-16T18:10:14Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > At one time, English (on both sides of the Atlantic) made a distinction between simple futurity and determined intent. The forms for simple futurity were “I/we shall” and “you/he/she/it/they will,” and the forms for intent were “I/we will” and “you/he/she/it/they shall.” Beginning around World War II (and intensified by Douglas MacArthur’s grammatically accurate but misunderstood “I shall return”) and continuing apace to the present, that distinction has been eroded away, to the point where even the most precisionist of speakers will often fail to make the distinction. There’s certainly no dialect I’m aware of that makes this distinction reliably; I don’t think even Received English maintains this distinction all that carefully. Was it ever actually something speakers _did_, or was it always a prescriptionist rule that was widely ignored? ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/11 "2006-01-16T18:35:16Z")
The verb “use” is like this as well. It can be used like in this very sentence, meaning “to utilize”. It can also be used to set past tense: “I used to bicycle more 10 years ago.” ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/12 "2006-01-16T18:41:05Z")
> [@AWB](#): > > The verb “use” is like this as well. > > It can be used like in this very sentence, meaning “to utilize”. > > It can also be used to set past tense: “I used to bicycle more 10 years ago.” It’s definitely used in a periphrastic habitual past sense, but it’s not the same as _will_ or _could_, which (as mentioned) lack an infinitive, and also don’t show the _-s_ ending in the third person singular (e.g. \*\*Cans she play sitar?\*) There’s unique morphological properties of modals in English, and other verbs used in periphrastic constructions don’t count as modals because they don’t have those properties. Like _go_, which is used in a periphrastic future, as in _I’m going to conquer Kazakhstan_ - but it has an infinitive, and infinitive verbs following it retain the particle _to_, and it has a third person singular form with _-s_ in the present tense. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-word-is-will/340192/13 "2006-01-16T18:58:42Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > There’s certainly no dialect I’m aware of that makes this distinction reliably; I don’t think even Received English maintains this distinction all that carefully. Was it ever actually something speakers _did_, or was it always a prescriptionist rule that was widely ignored? According to Follett, it was a very common distinction among careful writers and speakers, a bit more common in British than American speech but standard in writing in both countries. And it was as common, apparently, in “unconscious usage,” as “If I were…” and similar usages. I presume we’re talking Victorian era through the 1920s and 30s. But I’ve never seen anyone using it consistently in my lifetime, except prescriptivists talking about it.