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   Hello, all   
      
   I have been reading Dorothy Sayers essays on the train, and   
   enjoying them very much.  Here are her remarks on `shall'   
   and `will', which I can't help quoting:   
      
      Let us take as our example that famous distinction which we   
      English alone in all the world know how to make: the   
      distinction between "shall" and "will." "The mere   
      Englishman," says Mr. H. W. Fowler, "if he reflects upon the   
      matter at all, is convinced that his shall and will endows   
      his speech with a delicate precision that could not be   
      attained without it, and serves more important purposes than   
      that of a race-label." (Mark, in passing, how slyly the   
      scholar is here laughing in his sleeve at those to whom one   
      word is as good as another. "Mere Englishman," says he,   
      knowing that this will be taken for mock humility. But he   
      knows, too, that merus means "pure," and that when Queen   
      Elizabeth called herself "mere English" she meant it for a   
      boast.) Indeed, the distinction is no empty one: "I will do   
      it" (with reluctance, but you force me); "I shall do it"   
      (and God and His angels have no power to stay me).   
      
      Consider this sentence, taken from a short novel which   
      contains no fewer than forty-three incorrect uses of "will"   
      and "would":   
      
         I am also thinking about getting some work. It should be   
         easy, because I won't be pushed by necessity.   
      
      It looks like a failure of logic. If the speaker is   
      determined not to be pushed by his necessity into whatever   
      work shall offer itself, then, one would say, a man so   
      necessitous and so obstinate will not easily find work   
      before he perishes of his necessities. But the context shows   
      that the author does not mean this. He means: "I shall not   
      be pushed by necessity (because I have plenty of money), and   
      can therefore afford to take a job with small pay; and that   
      should be easy to find."   
      
      Is this a trifling matter, not worth making clear? Then see   
      how you can destroy the most beautiful parable in Scripture   
      by using the one word for the other:   
      
         I shall arise and go to my father and shall say unto him   
         ...   
      
      How jaunty the words are now; how cocksure; how   
      hypocritical; how they compel the sneering comment, "and the   
      poor old blighter will fall for the sob-stuff again."[2]   
      
      Remember, too, how the late Lord Oxford, who was a stylist,   
      refused on a famous occasion to surrender the hammer-stroke   
      of "shall," even when faced by a conglomeration of sibilants   
      that might have daunted the most courageous orator:   
      
         We shall not sheathe the sword that we have not lightly   
         drawn...   
      
      Not promise; but prophecy.   
      
      Does anybody, possessing a tool that will do such delicate   
      work so easily, really desire to abandon it? It is being   
      abandoned. We are letting "shall" and "should" drift out of   
      our hands while we labour to do their work, crudely and   
      coarsely, with "will" and "would." Even so correct and   
      elegant a writer as Mr. Robert Graves is losing his English   
      ear and writing: "I would like to," and "I would prefer to."   
      Here the use is redundant and not ambiguous; but if we do   
      not trouble to distinguish we shall soon lose the power of   
      distinguishing. Moreover, if we use "will" or "would"   
      wrongly nine times, and the tenth time intend it rightly,   
      who, the tenth time, will give us credit for good   
      intentions? The gentleman with the forty-three wrong uses   
      has perhaps a dozen right uses as well; but amid so great a   
      herd of goats his few innocent lambs look like strays.   
      
   This was from "The English Language":   
      
      https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20170113   
      
   I like her essays much more than her detective stores, do   
   you?   
      
   Those interested in the correct usage of `will' and `shall'   
   may consult "King's English":  https://www.bartleby.com/116/  .   
      
   ---    
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