Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?

Yankee · Thu May 08, 2008 20:08 pm :)

Hi Nessie

Just to make things clear, I have to tell you that ALL of my attempts to imitate British English are generally bad. I truly believe that if a Brit heard me trying to speak like a Brit, I would be laughed at. Wink

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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

Molly · Thu May 08, 2008 22:33 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

Yankee · Fri May 09, 2008 6:29 am *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

I've always associated the word shan't very strongly with British English. Would you say that Nigerian English is based strictly on British English?
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

Molly · Fri May 09, 2008 7:24 am *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

It's a bit more complicated than that. You can read a little about Nigerian English/es here:

http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/sp2002/pdf/gut-milde.pdf
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861683342_1861683330/prevpage.html

nessie · Fri May 09, 2008 12:26 pm :)

Yankee · Fri May 09, 2008 15:35 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

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I do not speak British English, Nessie, and that fact doesn't bother me in the least. In addition, I see no reason why it should bother any speakers of British English or you that I don't speak British English. I see no reason why I should not say what is and is not common or typical in American English. When there is a difference between American and British English, I see no reason whatsoever that I should pretend the difference does not exist.

I speak American English. I cannot and will not imitate British English. My English is different from the English in the UK. It's as simple as that.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

MrPedantic · Sat May 10, 2008 15:34 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

You hear "shan't" sometimes in southern BrE.

It seems to have only a minor presence online; an advanced Google search by region returns:

c. 920 significant results for United Kingdom
c. 912 for the US
c. 580 for Australia
c. 220 for Ireland
c. 215 for South Africa
c. 5 for Nigeria, of doubtful provenance

(By "significant results", I mean "excluding those that Google calls very similar." If you include the "similar" results, the results for each country reach into 4 or more figures; except in the case of Nigeria, which remains at 5.)

MrP

Alan · Sat May 10, 2008 15:39 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

What on earth is southern BrE when it's at home?

Alan
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MrPedantic · Sat May 10, 2008 15:54 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

I should have said, "standard southern BrE".

BrE = British English.

To take random examples from the world of entertainment: it's the English that e.g. David Attenborough, Jeremy Paxman and Will Self speak. Cf. the English spoken by David Beckham, Sir Alan Sugar, and Jamie Oliver, which includes non-standard elements.

MrP

Yankee · Sat May 10, 2008 16:15 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

Hi MrP

How does Google do a search by region? Does that simply mean, for example, that .com and .uk are counted as two separate regions?

The word shan't is basically not used in my neck of the woods at all. The main exception that comes to mind would be a possible usage accompanied by a mock British accent -- which presumably would not sound particularly authentic to British ears. Laughing

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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

MrPedantic · Sat May 10, 2008 16:27 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

Hello Yankee,

I'm not quite sure what goes on in the guts of Google; but they might assess IP addresses, or domain registration data.

(They like to know where we come from, so that they can target their ads more effectively.)

MrP

Yankee · Sat May 10, 2008 16:29 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

Molly · Sat May 10, 2008 23:57 pm *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

MrPedantic · Sun May 11, 2008 0:49 am *Do you ever use the form 'shan't'? If yes, when?*

When you google on a particular word or phrase, Google says e.g. Results 1 - 10 of about 794,000 for <word or phrase>. (0.18 seconds)

This figure is quite misleading. It includes cached versions of pages, quotations in links, occurrences in listings for "My Discussions" in forums, repeated words in webpage headers, etc.

To eliminate these duplicates, find the last page with "real" entries. In the case of your UK search on "shan't", for instance, this is roughly page 92. Here you will find this note:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 923 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

"923" is therefore the significant number. The "very similar" entries are those that Google considers duplicates. (For interest, if you accept the offer to repeat the search, and go to a later page, the omitted entries are indented below the entries they duplicate. Google sometimes misses a duplicate; but on the whole, it's quite reliable.)

MrP

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