The line: from Algini: “—we shall track it, and we will act.”
I’ll almost lay you money a copyeditor is going to come to a screeching halt and try to draw both statements into uniformity. Which will remove a layer of meaning. And which I shall have to stet. So, I think I WILL insert the [sic] (Latin for ‘thus’) into the text and hope the copyeditor does not fail to strike THAT printer’s notation before it’s set in print.
Do you read that the quality of copyediting is going down by the stern? You’d be right.
Here’s the grammar involved, and it’s really quite simple.
The present tense of the verb ‘track’.
First person means “I,” and “we” (closest to you.)
Second person means “you singular” and “you plural”, ie one, and more than one.
Third person means “he, she, it” and “they” farthest from you, over there.
The rule of shall and will is simple. Shall is only first person when it means future action. “I shall track” and “we shall track.”
Will is second and third person when it means future action. “you will track,” “you pl. will track,” “he will track, she will track, it will track, and they will track.”
NOW, the tricky and subtle bit. The rule totally reverses when it indicates determination about the act.
If you say, “I will track,” it’s as good as italicizing ‘will’ and speaking it with emphasis. It is a subtlety of expression which expresses Intent. 😉
So it becomes, by reversing the above rule: for Intent: I will track, we will track. Then: you shall track, you pl. shall track becomes an Order, isn’t that clever?
And yet one more trick: he shall track, she shall track, it shall track, and they shall track become a Legal Directive.
If you remotely think this is a distinction without meaning, well, the State of Oklahoma managed to void its inheritance law by screwing up the “he shall track” bit. Instead of “he shall track”, they wrote “he will track,” which made it legally ineffective, and unenforcable by the law.
Just one more of the little slippery slopes American English has been skating down ever since it abandoned grammar instruction in favor of the “people naturally talk right” rule of teaching English.
English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it.
Nuts. Brackets got hidden and mistaken for italics. Take 2.
Me: Miss, can I go to the toilet?
Miss: You can.
[I get up to go to leave the room]
Miss: But you may not.
[I stand in the middle of the classroom looking baffled]
[I finally sit down, embarrassed]
(At this point I can’t remember if she explained or if I had to wait until I got home and asked my parents, but I lean towards the latter.)
Ow. That’s cold……But you still remember.
Yep, I still do. And a few years later I realised she wasn’t really a dragon. 🙂
heheh – we got that from Dad as kids, bit of a tease – can I do this that or the other – yes you can but you may not, LOL! I am sure he got it from his dad too … great grandfather was a very learned man and a head teacher!
PS haven’t you all read the book about grammar, Eats shoots and leaves; the Zero Tolerance approach to punctuation. – here on amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eats-shoots-leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/1861976127/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283346458&sr=1-1
An absolutely fabulous book! It’s on the bookshelf right now, for reference, and to soothe my psyche after encountering particularly egregious misuses.
I don’t think I ever learned about will and shall in such depth. I am old enough to remember grammar in junior high and even some in senior high – but apparently it is no longer taught. Even worse, since the new teaching generations have not learned it properly it will not be taught in the future.
Alas, the art of writing has left us.
Jonathan
One common grammatical error which I always find irritating is when the nominative and accusative forms of pronouns are confused in sentences like, “Jim told Dave and I that…”. It should, of course, be “Jim told Dave and me…”. (But “Dave and I told Jim…” is correct.) Or, “It seemed to we parents that…”, instead of “It seemed to us parents that…”.
You can always check which form is correct by leaving out the doubled part. You wouldn’t say “Jim told I…” so you shouldn’t say “Jim told Dave and I…”. You wouldn’t say, “It seemed to we that…”, so you shouldn’t say “It seemed to we parents that…”.
It gets notably bad in video games, when the supreme baddie blows his grand forsoothly declaration…
You have to wonder if the voice actor ever pulls a screeching stop and corrects it. But probably not, since they probably get Cousin Ferdie to play the part.
Ah, the immortal (and frequently bastardized) “All your base are belong to us.”
Well, and we are charitably only going to gloss the JK Rowling problem with Him Who should not be Named…—the persistence of “He” no matter the actual case use within the sentence is jarring. For those who wonder, the reason “Who” is still “who” despite the “Him” [objective case] is that “Who” is,regardless of the case of its antecedent “Him”, the subject of the verb “should be named.”
Another bad guy with case/tense problems!
And opening another can of worms: using who/whom. The simple fact is that the case of “who” is NOT, NOT, NOT affected or ‘attracted’ by the case of its antecedent: it pursues its own case depending on its relationship to the verb. This is so simple. And so frequently screwed.
which begs the question, “To whom are you speaking?”
…wuh?…
I have a grammar book at home. Maybe I should look at it, since nothing about this particular post makes any sense to me. Affected? Attracted? Case? Wuh? (Okay, I read it three times, and now I get “affected.” “Case” for me is Upper, Lower, All Caps or Small Caps. Or ‘basket.” Its usage re: who/whom is a complete novelty to me.)
Re: Voldemort…is it because it’d be “him” if you rearranged the name to Who Must Not Be Named (is) Him? ???
…and I have an English degree… Of course, most of my generation learned their (our? now I’m all self-conscious!) grammar from Schoolhouse Rock…
🙂 Because it is “with Him” the ‘he’ in He Who Must Not Be Named HAS to become ‘him’, just as you say “I see him,” never “I see he.” The preposition ‘with’ takes the objective case, always. ‘With me,’ never ‘with I’; ‘with him,’ never ‘with he.’
The word Who is simply not connected to the word He. Rather the entire phrase Who Must Not Be Named is connected to ‘he’ as one descriptive unit, and functions as an adjective. The words “who must not be named” obey internal rules as a mini-sentence unto themselves, with ‘who’ as the subject.
The simple rule is that a who-clause or a which-clause does NOT take its case from the word it modifies [in this case ‘him’.] It operates as a separate unit.
‘Who’ is the subject of Must-not-be-named. It cannot be anything else: it is nominative case, because it is the subject of the passive verb structure must-not-be-named.
(with increasing desperation)
I get everything except the first paragraph of the following explanation. Where does “with” come from, in reference to Whoever Must Not Be Named? (I get the “with me” thing, and that “must not be named” is connected to “who.” I just don’t see where the invisible “with” comes from.) The only way I can make any sense of this is something like “The one (who must not be named) is him” — which still doesn’t have a “with.”
Feel free to ignore this if you’re tired of trying to explain it. 🙂 I just have a feeling I’m not the only person reading this going “huh?” (Oops. I used “going.” Sorry! 🙂 )
Edit: this program isn’t giving me another layer of reply, so I’m using this method. The ‘with’ is an example. ‘To’ would have worked. Or ‘from’. Actually, I’m not going to touch your example, because we would only get more confused if I drag in ancestral French—but basically the rule is—take the ENTIRE who-clause out and construe the sentence without it. That will give you a correct reading. Then construe the entire who-clause ALONE, without the ‘he’ or ‘him’, and get the case of ‘who’ correct WITHIN ITS OWN CLAUSE. Put the two together, and voila!:
Example. He [who must not be named] is standing near the door.
Second example: I have just seen Him [Who Must Not Be Named.]
Third example. He [Whom I love] is in the room.
Fourth example He {of whom I was speaking} is in the room.
Fifth example: He [whose book was stolen] is speaking with the police.
Sixth example: The police are speaking to him [whose book was stolen.]
They are just treated as separate little sentences, and he and whom have NOTHING to do with each other grammatically, except that, he being human, you do not use ‘which’ [the neuter form of who]. Gender is all they have in common.
Is it any wonder that English speakers in a hurry or being informal frequently substitute ‘that’ for ‘who/which’ to save themselves mental anguish?
I’m afraid that the usage of will and shall by the book has fallen by the wayside. Shall is so rare in every day usage any more that one naturally tends to interpret any current use of the word shall emphatically, regardless of the fact that by the book, that is not the case. I think that if you polled a random sample of people that your group shrink by an order of magnitude as you asked each of the following questions:
1) Who is aware that there is a rule governing the usage of will and shall?
2) Who can apply the rule correctly in both the normal and the emphatic usage?
3) Who actually applies the rule in formal writing?
4) Who applies the rule in everyday speech?
Given the current sate of American education, I think that one would find that the list would not only get smaller as you went, the median age would increase even more quickly.
Hmm. I got the sense of what Algini was saying in that quote immediately–with the emphasis on “will”. I can’t always recall the proper terms for rules of grammar, but I understand why words are used the way they are, and how they go together…generally (always ready to learn something new, too!)
Re: “shall” and “will”: Lyndon Johnson once made a statement that “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” – which I have seen cited by English grammar experts as a perfect example of how to use these words.
Re: copy editing going downhill…I borrowed a book from the library by a well-known urban fantasy author. It was the worse example of copy editing I have ever seen. There was literally an error on every page…spaces after words and before punctuation, words missing, words repeated, places where one word had clearly been meant to replace another word, but both words were there tacked together as one word…(“tooalso” for ex.) I can’t believe the book made it out of the publishing house like that. I don’t think the author was to blame; this was such a mess that I wonder if the book was printed using the wrong template. I’ve only seen one copy of it, so I don’t know if they were all like that. I hope not.
Depending upon the author, the author might have been to blame. Apparently there are some authors with enough clout (sales) who can and do refuse having their work edited.
It’s amazing how much language function we pick up just by hearing it used. But some people don’t have the advantage that provides. School is supposed to be the place where people catch up on such things, but school has started concentrating on making people feel good about what they came with, instead of helping them improve their personal toolkit.
Lord knows on the copyediting: in a pinch, they may go straight from the writer’s disk, and if the writer is not careful, the way things are going in NYC, this is exactly what can happen.
Or there is the joy of learning that your special characters are printer-commands: Ninevrise (umlaut) produced a contraction and erasure of several letters every time it appeared in type. I got a frantic call from NYC after hours, as they were going to press and initial proofing was getting bizarre results. Once I supplied them a list of such words, they could cope, but they were late at night, they were behind-schedule, their script was going Martian on them, and they were soooooo relieved when I could pop up that list in fairly short order.
I don’t think we should (would? do the same rules apply?) deplore the state of education when discussing will/shall. English is just unreasonably silly in requiring a shift depending on case. If the leaders of the English-speaking world stood up and said, “From now on, ‘will’ will refer to all matters of willpower and ‘shall’ will refer to all matters of what should happen in the future,” the problem would be solved.
This discussion remeinds me of the story about Winston Churchill who apparently got ticked off because a copy-editor gigged him for ending a sentence with a preposition. He revised his text accordingly and finished the speech in grand style with the phrase “… and that is something up with which I shall not put!”
lol. I wish I’d thought of that. Had a colleague who would always pull me up on that – drove me crazy.
😆 This is one of the Germanic legacies, one suspects. In Latin or Greek, case and gender are evident on EVERY noun, so creating parenthetical statements (little statements within larger statements) is easier. In German (and in ancient Greek) you have expressions like “The on-the-bridge-standing, in-the-water-gazing man looked ruefully at the once flourishing mill-site.” In Latin you can interlock pieces of that like building-bricks and still have it intelligible because the bricks have ‘color’ to show you which go together, ie, matching gender and case keep them as a set even if they’re separated.
English, however, gave up all its case and gender shifts *except* the pronouns, which still inflect (flex into case/gender). Consequently we *must* keep the sentence order exact, and emphasis relies heavily on tonality when spoken and on such tricks as italics and underlining when written (which other languages don’t do nearly as much)—or on emphasis by position.
So when a speaker like Mr. Churchill attempts to convey a parenthetical situation, and tries to be sure the average listener really gets the point, he faces the entire baggage of compromises the English language made when it became virtually caseless, and in the interests of maintaining a straightforward rather than inverse order within the phrases, he innovates—as did Shakespeare—thus frustrating grammarians.
[Shakespeare violated the rule about using ‘s strictly as a possessive, and only on living creatures, e.g., the man’s sleep. He concocted the phrase ‘a good night’s sleep’ to fit the poetical meter in which his plays were written. And grammarians were not pleased. But it stuck.]
The above explanation is so convolute I’m not sure *I* understand what I just wrote, but it is why Mr. Churchill and grammarians butted heads. 😉
In re: shall or will. They are extensively used in requirements documents used to hold contractors feet to the fire for government acquisitions. It’s really important, and every lawyer gets schooled on the usage.
Greetings everyone,
It was touched upon, but unless I missed it and forgive me if I’m repeating here, but, this is very important that we don’t lose touch with that grammatical foundation.
It wasn’t until just recently, both in beginning my study in formal logic, and reading a Roman Historic Fiction Novel written on apparently letters or documents describing true events, “The Venus Throw”, semantics and grammar are the basis for all the logics upon which modern Western Law rests upon.
I say this at risk of sounding naive of the facts and a full understanding. But I figured Mrs. Cherryh would know more about it as I am under the impression she loves Roman History and hates how they always get it wrong in the mainstream storytelling methods (movies and fictional novels).
The Venus Throw I’m certain she’s read, and if she hasn’t, I think she should, but isn’t the basis of law’s logic, it’s actual authority to define and classify clearly, rooted firmly in the grammatical arrangement?
Oration and Law, Politics and Legal Logic, and grammar. I think its invaluable.
And as a slightly related point, I don’t know how to address or refer to Mrs. C.J. Cherryh. Formality and proper respects are important to me, I feel they are bookends for civilized interactions, and fully compartmentalize formal exchanges and interpersonal exchanges. The lack of importance of these seems to me to have a negative effect on the smooth interactions of human beings, but then, that’s an opinion, I can’t really think of any period in history where the interactions of human beings in general have been smooth.
Point being, I am uncomfortable assuming familiarity or risking offense by being too familiar without invitation.
You may simply call me CJ, which is a name I like. Everyone who posts here is welcomed into a circle of friends, and you are very welcome. Do be at ease. We joke, certainly, and if there is one rule here, it is simply civility and good humor.
Another question I might ask.
I agree grammar is important, and that understanding it, how it should be used, and how it can be used to enhance storytelling is also important. I did not get the best formal education for it when I visited school in my youth. What would be a good book to start with? I am looking for the equivalent of a “Basic to Advanced Grammar for Dummies.” I’ve got the basics down fairly well, and I’ve learned a lot from experienced writers, reading their work. There still remains gaps in my knowledge that become painfully apparent the moment I’m discussing the topic with someone who would be considered trained in grammar, and that just won’t do.
My favorite short book is “Strunk on Style,”…but one of the very best condensed rulebooks for grammar exists in the first pages of Webster’s International Dictionary. The microprint front pages that most people flip past as irrelevant contain a summary of the rules of spelling, and the rules of grammar, neatly stated.
CJ, “he goes” is really a minor trespass since it simply warps the meaning of the verb. Apparently you haven’t been exposed to the latest method for delivering the quote direct: He’s like …. and then I’m like… I tell you it’s just not for the faint of heart out here in the trenches. My mental response to the “I’m like” idiom is any number of possible endings for the simile with comparisons that are as socially inappropriate as they are apt to the speaker’s utter indifference to good grammar.
To quote Kylie Mole “She goes, she goes…she just goes”. 🙂
And an Australian take on speech-junk:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245101215.html
English grammar has gradually become simpler and simpler over the centuries, and it will probably continue to do so.
In Chaucer’s day English was still grammatically quite complex, in Shakespeare’s day less so, and today it’s even simpler. No doubt this trend will continue in the future.
Examples of fake ‘olde Englyshe’ today are usually grating, because many people now don’t understand such things as the difference between thou and thee. (Subject and object. I say unto thee. Thou sayest unto me.)
And a whole layer of meaning is often lost when people read Shakespeare today without realizing the difference between the formal and informal forms of address. English once distinguished (as many other languages still do today) between an informal, less respectful 2nd person pronoun, and a more formal and respectful one.
‘Thou’ was informal, used for friends, family, and social inferiors. Used for others it was disrespectful or insulting.
‘You’ was more formal and respectful.
There is a good example in Shakespeare’s Richard III, Act I Scene IV, where two men come to murder the Duke of Clarence in his prison cell. When Clarence first wakes up and sees them, he addresses them using ‘thou’. As soon as he realizes that they are there to kill him, he switches to the more respectful ‘you’, as he tries to persuade them not to. As the murderers work themselves up to do the deed, they switch from ‘you’ to ‘thou’. There are several changes of usage as the conversation ebbs and flows.
See the Wikipedia entry on ‘Thou’. It’s quite interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou
In relation to “He who should not be named” I assumed that it came about from “She who must be obeyed” – either from H Rider Haggard’s novel or, more likely, from Rumpole of the Bailey. The phrase is fairly common in Britain so Rowling’s version fits into an accepted pattern.
english grammar is much easier than french, spanish and italian, which use the dreaded subjunctive! and your adjectives have to be the right gender. and it is impolite to use the tu verb form in french unless the french person uses it to you, but you insult a friend by using the vous form, and in spanish you refer to those who are not familiar as usted in the third person, just like the the thee and thou versus you in old english ….
one has to admit that maybe there is a certain snobbery about all this will and shall stuff … perhaps? are we over-educated and clinging onto arcane grammatical knowledege? however, if you do know what it means, you can express yourself more clearly, provided your audience also has the knowledge too.
Well, we do have a subjunctive, which is nightly mangled on the news and never used correctly on the Discovery Channel.
Really there is a certain in-club about grammar, and it should never be used impolitely, behavior which is its own kind of de-class-e (I have no accent marks)–but as a weapon or tool it is splendid. And more people understand it when used correctly than understand how to use it correctly, so it has its value.
And when I am sure everyone understands about who-whom, I shall be happy to come forth with the English subjunctive. I wasn’t a Latin teacher for nothing!
And let’s not forget Japanese modes of address and vocabulary, which to my understanding has Polite, Very Polite, Super Hyper Polite — and Deadly Insult. Verbal land mines just sitting around waiting to make things more interesting…
Latin, which usually doesn’t use a word for “he” in the nominative case (verbs can do the job)—has 4 different he’s (and other pronouns.) is, hic, ille, and iste. “is” is pretty neutral. “Hic”= this guy here, near me, or that we are currently talking about. “ille” is the opposite of “hic”, meaning that guy over there, near him, or that we were talking about a while ago. And “iste” means that guy I really can’t stand, or that I want to dissociate myself from, or that we were talking about so long ago it hardly matters…
A disgusted parent might greet the mate with “iste puer urnam matris fregit.” “[that boy not related to me][That kid] YOUR son broke my mother’s vase.”
One last comment from me – of course I read Ms. Cherryh not only for the good stories but also because of the extremely good writing.