Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
shall, will (auxs.)
Americans use shall and will (and their contraction ’ll) almost interchangeably, except in certain questions: for example, Shall I kick you? meaning “Do you want me to?” and Will I kick you? meaning “Do you think I’m going to?” Furthermore, when Americans seek unusually polite forms of speech or writing, they seem to think shall a bit more elegant, respectful, or impressive.
For Standard Formal written English some people try to adhere to certain school-taught rules specifying that for the simple future, shall should be used with the first person, as in We shall overcome, and will with second and third persons, as in They will find us here, and that to express special volition, determination, and the like, these distributions should be reversed, as in I will have my way or They shall do what we ask. Alas, these rules have never really described the way Standard users speak the language at nearly all levels or the way they write it in Semiformal and Informal situations. It appears that we generally use will or the contraction ’ll at all but the upper levels, reserving shall for certain questions and for statements whose formality or whose stress on the auxiliary seems to require variation from the more usual will. Our negative contractions also seem to be mainly with will: Americans nearly always say won’t, and rarely use shan’t. Native users of American English can trust their instincts on shall and will. Stress can make You WILL do as I say every bit as forceful as You SHALL do as I say, and most of us would feel it necessary to italicize or capitalize either auxiliary in writing anyway, just to make sure the reader recognizes that stress. Where there is semantic difference between shall and will, as in certain questions, native speakers do not make errors. See also FUTURE TENSE.
