 #2 (permalink) Sat Apr 01, 2006 14:38 pm Are "shall" and "ought to" out of da |
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| Anonymous wrote: |
| are "shall" and "ought to" out of date nowadays? |
Shall is quite out of date in North America, except when it is used to mean, "I will absolutely do it, without fail!" You'll occasionally hear, "I will and I shall," which means you want to do something, and you will definitely do it. Even that sounds a bit archaic, however. Otherwise, shall is very seldom used in America, and we use will instead.
I believe that shall is still used very commonly in the UK, and that there it is not strange or out of date at all.
As far as I know, ought to is still completely normal language everywhere in the English-speaking world. We use it every day, alternating it with should. It's said very frequently.
Alan may have further comments from the UK side. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
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