Hello, all.

A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
`should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):

"I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."

"How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
the appearance of your work with intereset."

"I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
Mrs. Bennet.

-- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.

--
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/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

On 22 Jan 2024, Anton Shepelev wrote

> Hello, all.
>
> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>
> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
> the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
> constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
> spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>
> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
> the appearance of your work with intereset."
>
> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
> Mrs. Bennet.
>
> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>

An interesting use of "should" was in the country-and-western song
"(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" - written in 1952 by Bill
Trader, recorded the following year by Hank Snow, and later by Elvis
and a lot of others (including Bob Dylan in 1967, ssued on one of the
"Basement Tapes" albums).

-----------
Pardon me if I'm sentimental when we say goodbye;
Don't be angry with me should I cry.
When you're gone yet I'll dream a little dream as years go by,
Now and then there's a fool such as I.
-----------

It's always struck me as rather old-fashioned and formal; I think
the vernacular for most people these days would use "if" instead of
"should".

The use of "yet" in the third line also seems oddly non-vernacular
for a country-and-western lyric.

--
Cheers,
Harvey

On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:19 AM UTC-7, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hello, all.
>
> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>
> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
> the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
> constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
> spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>
> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
> the appearance of your work with intereset."
>
> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
> Mrs. Bennet.
>
> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.

You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to those
rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of course it's
not surprising in a historical novel.

I'm surprised to see how rare "I should like", "I should think", and "I
should hope" have become in British books.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3

http://tinyurl.com/msy32xe7

I don't remember Mrs. Bennet as snorting or using sarcastic
expressions like that, and I suspect that the "Don't hold your breath"
trope is a good deal more recent than the Darcys' marriage.

--
Jerry Friedman

Le 22/01/2024 à 18:18, Jerry Friedman a écrit :
>
> I'm surprised to see how rare "I should like", "I should think", and "I
> should hope" have become in British books.
>
> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>

'Would' seems to have taken over:

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+would+like&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>

There's a lot of wilful liking going on these days.

Le 23/01/2024 à 06:28, Hibou a écrit :
> Le 22/01/2024 à 18:18, Jerry Friedman a écrit :
>>
>> I'm surprised to see how rare "I should like", "I should think", and "I
>> should hope" have become in British books.
>>
>> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>
>
> 'Would' seems to have taken over:
>
> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+would+like&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>
>
> There's a lot of wilful liking going on these days.

Also, people either being informal, or hedging their bets:

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+would+like%2CI%27d+like&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>

For myself, I should like to see "I should like" more often.

On 23/01/2024 6:46 a.m., HVS wrote:
> On 22 Jan 2024, Anton Shepelev wrote
>
>> Hello, all.
>>
>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
>> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>
>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
>> the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
>> constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
>> spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>
>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
>> the appearance of your work with intereset."
>>
>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
>> Mrs. Bennet.
>>
>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>>
>
> An interesting use of "should" was in the country-and-western song
> "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" - written in 1952 by Bill
> Trader, recorded the following year by Hank Snow, and later by Elvis
> and a lot of others (including Bob Dylan in 1967, ssued on one of the
> "Basement Tapes" albums).
>
> -----------
> Pardon me if I'm sentimental when we say goodbye;
> Don't be angry with me should I cry.
> When you're gone yet I'll dream a little dream as years go by,
> Now and then there's a fool such as I.
> -----------
>
> It's always struck me as rather old-fashioned and formal; I think
> the vernacular for most people these days would use "if" instead of
> "should".

The "should" in this unusual position (before the subject) is actually
marking a conditional without the use of "if":
should I cry = if I should cry.
(I think adding the "should" makes the possibility a little more remote,
comparing "if I cry" with "if I should cry".)
The inverted-word-order conditionals feel to me like a more literary
variant of the straight-order ones with "if":
had I known = if I had known
....sometimes so literary as to be impossible in ordinary speech?
?could she see him = if she could see him
?were I you = if I were you
>
> The use of "yet" in the third line also seems oddly non-vernacular
> for a country-and-western lyric.
>

On 22/01/2024 19:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:19 AM UTC-7, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>> Hello, all.
>>
>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
>> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>
>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
>> the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
>> constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
>> spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>
>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
>> the appearance of your work with intereset."
>>
>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
>> Mrs. Bennet.
>>
>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>
> You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
> Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to those
> rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of course it's
> not surprising in a historical novel.
>
> I'm surprised to see how rare "I should like", "I should think", and "I
> should hope" have become in British books.
>
> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3
>
> http://tinyurl.com/msy32xe7
>

Interesting. Just for comparison, I did a search on "I should *", to
put those three variants in context.

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+*&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>

Note: 'I should hope' does not make it to the top 10

On 23/01/24 19:16, Ross Clark wrote:
> On 23/01/2024 6:46 a.m., HVS wrote:
>> On 22 Jan 2024, Anton Shepelev wrote
>>
>>> Hello, all.
>>>
>>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
>>> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>>
>>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all
>>> the prominent writers on manners of the last century. I
>>> constantly come across these delights in my reading and have
>>> spent some time on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>>
>>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await
>>> the appearance of your work with intereset."
>>>
>>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
>>> Mrs. Bennet.
>>>
>>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>>>
>>
>> An interesting use of "should" was in the country-and-western song
>> "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" - written in 1952 by Bill
>> Trader, recorded the following year by Hank Snow, and later by Elvis
>> and a lot of others (including Bob Dylan in 1967, ssued on one of the
>> "Basement Tapes" albums).
>>
>> -----------
>> Pardon me if I'm sentimental when we say goodbye;
>> Don't be angry with me should I cry.
>> When you're gone yet I'll dream a little dream as years go by,
>> Now and then there's a fool such as I.
>> -----------
>>
>> It's always struck me as rather old-fashioned and formal; I think
>> the vernacular for most people these days would use "if" instead of
>> "should".
>
> The "should" in this unusual position (before the subject) is actually
> marking a conditional without the use of "if":
> should I cry = if I should cry.
> (I think adding the "should" makes the possibility a little more remote,
> comparing "if I cry" with "if I should cry".)
> The inverted-word-order conditionals feel to me like a more literary
> variant of the straight-order ones with "if":
> had I known = if I had known
> ...sometimes so literary as to be impossible in ordinary speech?
> ?could she see him = if she could see him
> ?were I you = if I were you

I agree, mostly. In my opinion, the use of an inversion to create a
conditional continues to be more common, these days, than the use of
"should" for simple futurity.

A complicating factor is that very few speakers of English can tell the
difference between a conditional and a subjunctive.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Peter Moylan:

> I agree, mostly. In my opinion, the use of an inversion to
> create a conditional continues to be more common, these
> days, than the use of "should" for simple futurity.

The inverted use of `should' in English is exactly
equivalent to the inverted use of `буде' in old Russian, cf.
the decrees of Peter the Great. That latter word shares the
root is the word denoting future -- `будущее', making it an
analog of sh. and w.

> A complicating factor is that very few speakers of English
> can tell the difference between a conditional and a
> subjunctive.

Are they mutually exclusive? I think that all of
If you leave me,
If you should leave me, and
Should you leave me
are conditinals with the verb in the subjunctive, especially
if one keeps the bare form in the sigular, i.e.:
/If he leave me/,
of which there are many examples in Boogle Gooks.

--
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/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 1:25:26 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> On 22/01/2024 19:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:19 AM UTC-7, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> >> Hello, all.
> >>
> >> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine
> >> `should' from /King's English/ (in the last line):
....

> >> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted
> >> Mrs. Bennet.
> >>
> >> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
> >
> > You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
> > Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to those
> > rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of course it's
> > not surprising in a historical novel.
> >
> > I'm surprised to see how rare "I should like", "I should think", and "I
> > should hope" have become in British books.
> >
> > https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+like%2CI+should+think%2CI+should+hope&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/msy32xe7
> >
> Interesting. Just for comparison, I did a search on "I should *", to
> put those three variants in context.
>
> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+should+*&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3>
>
> Note: 'I should hope' does not make it to the top 10

IIRC, those are the three forms where the Fowlers said "would" was
always wrong (though it could be right in second and third person).

--
Jerry Friedman

On 23/01/24 05:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:19 AM UTC-7, Anton Shepelev
> wrote:
>> Hello, all.
>>
>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine `should'
>> from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>
>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all the
>> prominent writers on manners of the last century. I constantly
>> come across these delights in my reading and have spent some time
>> on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>
>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await the
>> appearance of your work with intereset."
>>
>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted Mrs.
>> Bennet.
>>
>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>
> You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
> Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to
> those rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of
> course it's not surprising in a historical novel.

Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have

"I shall do this" (as is my duty)
"You will do this" (as you intend).

Using the auxiliaries the other way around was appropriate when
politeness was *not* intended. That gives us

"I will do this" (and you can't stop me)
"You shall do this" (because I'm ordering it)

By now, though, we have a much smaller pool of people who respect these
nuances, so the connections will=intention and shall=obligation have
been weakened. Whether that pool continues to shrink remains to be seen.

It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though. In French,
which does have a future tense, that future tense is less often used
these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am going) to express
simple futurity, just as we do in English.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024, at 08:44:31, Peter Moylan posted:
>On 23/01/24 05:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:190 >> wrote:
>>> Hello, all.
>>>
>>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine `should'
>>> from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>>
>>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all the
>>> prominent writers on manners of the last century. I constantly
>>> come across these delights in my reading and have spent some time
>>> on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>>
>>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await the
>>> appearance of your work with intereset."
>>>
>>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted Mrs.
>>> Bennet.
>>>
>>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>>
>> You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
>> Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to
>> those rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of
>> course it's not surprising in a historical novel.
>
>Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
>a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
>remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
>the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
>with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have
>
>"I shall do this" (as is my duty)
>"You will do this" (as you intend).
>
>Using the auxiliaries the other way around was appropriate when
>politeness was *not* intended. That gives us
>
>"I will do this" (and you can't stop me)
>"You shall do this" (because I'm ordering it)

There is more to "shall" than that. A classic pair which I'm sure has
been aired here more than once is, postulating the utterances of a
near-to-drowning man:

"I shall die, and no-one will save me." (This is my forecast.)

"I will die, and no-one shall save me." (This is my demand.)
>
>By now, though, we have a much smaller pool of people who respect these
>nuances, so the connections will=intention and shall=obligation have
>been weakened. Whether that pool continues to shrink remains to be seen.
>
>It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
>English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though. In French,
>which does have a future tense, that future tense is less often used
>these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am going) to express
>simple futurity, just as we do in English.

Glad to hear it. I'm all for French made easier. I recently failed to
solve a crossword puzzle in an inflected language (Latin, as it
happened) as it turned out I'd made three errors in unchecked letters.
I'd got the root noun or verb all right each time, the correct words in
principle, but was defeated by unexpected vowel or consonant
inflections. Intellexi not intellegi in the perfect tense, unlike the
behaviour of lego; the ablative case ending -o for second declension
nouns in -us gives way to -u in fourth declension nouns in -us; and I
missed the correct vowel change in the subjunctive demanded by an "ut"
clause. The French future tense built on an infinitive is something I
can do without. And goodness knows how those Romans managed to conquer
most of the known world with such written communication problems.

Well, I enjoyed writing that. You didn't need to read it.
--
Paul W

On 2024-01-23 23:04:17 +0000, Paul Wolff said:

> On Wed, 24 Jan 2024, at 08:44:31, Peter Moylan posted:
>> On 23/01/24 05:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:190 >> wrote:
>>>> Hello, all.
>>>>
>>>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine `should'
>>>> from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>>>
>>>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all the
>>>> prominent writers on manners of the last century. I constantly
>>>> come across these delights in my reading and have spent some time
>>>> on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>>>
>>>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await the
>>>> appearance of your work with intereset."
>>>>
>>>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted Mrs.
>>>> Bennet.
>>>>
>>>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>>>
>>> You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
>>> Fowlers, I assume. I think that "should" is correct according to
>>> those rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much. Of
>>> course it's not surprising in a historical novel.
>>
>> Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
>> a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
>> remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
>> the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
>> with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have
>>
>> "I shall do this" (as is my duty)
>> "You will do this" (as you intend).
>>
>> Using the auxiliaries the other way around was appropriate when
>> politeness was *not* intended. That gives us
>>
>> "I will do this" (and you can't stop me)
>> "You shall do this" (because I'm ordering it)
>
> There is more to "shall" than that. A classic pair which I'm sure has
> been aired here more than once is, postulating the utterances of a
> near-to-drowning man:
>
> "I shall die, and no-one will save me." (This is my forecast.)
>
> "I will die, and no-one shall save me." (This is my demand.)
>>
>> By now, though, we have a much smaller pool of people who respect these
>> nuances, so the connections will=intention and shall=obligation have
>> been weakened. Whether that pool continues to shrink remains to be seen.
>>
>> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
>> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though. In French,
>> which does have a future tense, that future tense is less often used
>> these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am going) to express
>> simple futurity, just as we do in English.
>
> Glad to hear it. I'm all for French made easier. I recently failed to
> solve a crossword puzzle in an inflected language (Latin, as it
> happened) as it turned out I'd made three errors in unchecked letters.
> I'd got the root noun or verb all right each time, the correct words in
> principle, but was defeated by unexpected vowel or consonant
> inflections. Intellexi not intellegi in the perfect tense, unlike the
> behaviour of lego; the ablative case ending -o for second declension
> nouns in -us gives way to -u in fourth declension nouns in -us; and I
> missed the correct vowel change in the subjunctive demanded by an "ut"
> clause.

"ut" was not my favourite word when I learned Latin. I don't remember
what it means, but I remember thinking Latin would be easier without it.

> The French future tense built on an infinitive is something I can do
> without. And goodness knows how those Romans managed to conquer most of
> the known world with such written communication problems.
>
> Well, I enjoyed writing that. You didn't need to read it.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

I wrote:

> I think that all of
> If you leave me,
> If you should leave me, and
> Should you leave me
> are conditinals with the verb in the subjunctive,
> especally if one keeps the bare form in the sigular, i.e.:
> /If he leave me/,
> of which there are many examples in Boogle Gooks.

By the law of synchronicity, howsoever you may interpret it,
I encoutered an instnace on a train to work this
morning -- smack-dab in the end of /Wuthering Heights/:

"And tell him, if hell take it, Ill come and teach him to
read it right," she said; "and, if he refuse it, I'll go
upstairs, and never tease him again."

This novel turned out an encyclopedia of toxic
relationships, which I did not look forward to at all...

--
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/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

On 23/01/2024 22:44, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 23/01/24 05:18, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 7:59:19 AM UTC-7, Anton Shepelev
>> wrote:
>>> Hello, all.
>>>
>>> A search in Google Books reveals what may prove a genuine `should'
>>> from /King's English/ (in the last line):
>>>
>>> "I am exploring every species of folly in the works of all the
>>> prominent writers on manners of the last century. I constantly
>>> come across these delights in my reading and have spent some time
>>> on expanding and ordering my thoughts."
>>>
>>> "How fascinating, Mr. Bennet," said the colonel. "I await the
>>> appearance of your work with intereset."
>>>
>>> "I should not hold my breath while I waited, sir," snorted Mrs.
>>> Bennet.
>>>
>>> -- from 's /Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride/ by Helen Halstead.
>>
>> You're talking about the "person-switching" senses described by the
>> Fowlers, I assume.  I think that "should" is correct according to
>> those rules, though my judgement on this isn't worth much.  Of
>> course it's not surprising in a historical novel.
>
> Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
> a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
> remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
> the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
> with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have
>
> "I shall do this" (as is my duty)
> "You will do this" (as you intend).
>
> Using the auxiliaries the other way around was appropriate when
> politeness was *not* intended. That gives us
>
> "I will do this" (and you can't stop me)
> "You shall do this" (because I'm ordering it)

Ah yes, I remember the ten commandments. Thou shalt not..

>
> By now, though, we have a much smaller pool of people who respect these
> nuances, so the connections will=intention and shall=obligation have
> been weakened. Whether that pool continues to shrink remains to be seen.
>
> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though.  In French,
> which does have a future tense, that future tense is less often used
> these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am going) to express
> simple futurity, just as we do in English.
>

Can you please email that observation - if true - to the compilers of
French Duolingo? It would make my life a lot easier. (Please don't tell
them you honed your French in Belgium.)

On 24/01/2024 00:04, Paul Wolff wrote:

>
> Glad to hear it. I'm all for French made easier. I recently failed to
> solve a crossword puzzle in an inflected language (Latin, as it
> happened) as it turned out I'd made three errors in unchecked letters.
> I'd got the root noun or verb all right each time, the correct words in
> principle, but was defeated by unexpected vowel or consonant
> inflections. Intellexi not intellegi in the perfect tense, unlike the
> behaviour of lego; the ablative case ending -o for second declension
> nouns in -us gives way to -u in fourth declension nouns in -us; and I
> missed the correct vowel change in the subjunctive demanded by an "ut"
> clause. The French future tense built on an infinitive is something I
> can do without. And goodness knows how those Romans managed to conquer
> most of the known world with such written communication problems.

The same way the Brits spread their empire across the globe? If there
were no issues with written English, we would not be here dissecting the
issues we do.

>
> Well, I enjoyed writing that. You didn't need to read it.

I enjoyed reading it, though I did not understand it. (Latin is my blind
spot.)

Le 23/01/2024 à 21:44, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>
> Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
> a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
> remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
> the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
> with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have
>
> "I shall do this" (as is my duty)

Hmm. I see 'I shall' as simple prediction. "If you keep on annoying me,
I shall go ape" etc.. (It isn't my duty to go ape, and I'd not use
'will' here, because it's not an act of will either.)

'Shall' in the first person seems to have survived better in questions -
"Shall we eat?"

> "You will do this" (as you intend).
>
> Using the auxiliaries the other way around was appropriate when
> politeness was *not* intended. That gives us
>
> "I will do this" (and you can't stop me)
> "You shall do this" (because I'm ordering it)
>
> By now, though, we have a much smaller pool of people who respect these
> nuances, so the connections will=intention and shall=obligation have
> been weakened. Whether that pool continues to shrink remains to be seen.

'Shall' as obligation is alive and well in requirement specs. "The unit
shall consume no more than 50W" etc..

> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though.  In French,
> which does have a future tense, that future tense is less often used
> these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am going) to express
> simple futurity, just as we do in English.

As I see it, the problem with the French future tense is that it sounds
like the conditional, so is often misspelt (je verrai, je verrais.)

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 09:49:50 +0100
occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

> On 24/01/2024 00:04, Paul Wolff wrote:
>
> >
> > Glad to hear it. I'm all for French made easier. I recently failed to
> > solve a crossword puzzle in an inflected language (Latin, as it
> > happened) as it turned out I'd made three errors in unchecked letters.
> > I'd got the root noun or verb all right each time, the correct words in
> > principle, but was defeated by unexpected vowel or consonant
> > inflections. Intellexi not intellegi in the perfect tense, unlike the
> > behaviour of lego; the ablative case ending -o for second declension
> > nouns in -us gives way to -u in fourth declension nouns in -us; and I
> > missed the correct vowel change in the subjunctive demanded by an "ut"
> > clause. The French future tense built on an infinitive is something I
> > can do without. And goodness knows how those Romans managed to conquer
> > most of the known world with such written communication problems.
>
> The same way the Brits spread their empire across the globe? If there
> were no issues with written English, we would not be here dissecting the
> issues we do.
>
> >
> > Well, I enjoyed writing that. You didn't need to read it.
>
> I enjoyed reading it, though I did not understand it. (Latin is my blind
> spot.)

I read it IV times and still my brian declines the proposition.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On 24/01/24 20:26, Hibou wrote:
> Le 23/01/2024 à 21:44, Peter Moylan a écrit :

>> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
>> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though. In
>> French, which does have a future tense, that future tense is less
>> often used these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am
>> going) to express simple futurity, just as we do in English.
>
> As I see it, the problem with the French future tense is that it
> sounds like the conditional, so is often misspelt (je verrai, je
> verrais.)

Despite the pronunciation difference? The people who taught me French
took pains to point out that an -ai ending was pronounced é, while an
-ais or -ait ending was pronounced è. If one's pronunciation is clear
enough, the difference between the future and the conditional is
obvious. But pronunciation evolves, so perhaps you're saying that that
distinction is disappearing. My experience of real-life French
pronunciation is a few years out of date by now.

And then there are regional variations. The way Parisians pronounce
"lundi" would have earnt me a fail in my French classes.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 24/01/24 19:42, occam wrote:
> On 23/01/2024 22:44, Peter Moylan wrote:

>> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
>> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though. In
>> French, which does have a future tense, that future tense is less
>> often used these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am
>> going) to express simple futurity, just as we do in English.
>
> Can you please email that observation - if true - to the compilers
> of French Duolingo? It would make my life a lot easier. (Please don't
> tell them you honed your French in Belgium.)

In my Irish Duolingo lessons I often have to go to my bilingual
dictionary. Like all dictionaries, it will tell me that a word has
multiple senses, so a translation cannot be unique. But Duolingo is
inflexible: it insists that only one of the translations is correct. I
imagine that it's the same in their French lessons.

I have noticed one exception. Irish has no indefinite article, so
"dalta" can mean "student" or "a student". Duolingo does accept these
variants. Perhaps it will accept some other things. My lessons haven't
yet proceeded beyond the present tense.

There's another factor operating here. (Some) people who teach languages
sometimes put stress on language features -- e.g. verb conjugations --
that you might not often encounter in practice. When I first did a
university-level French subject, the university offered two streams.
French 1A was for those who had done French in high school, and French
1S was for raw beginners. I had to do a classification test, and it was
full of things like the past subjunctive of irregular verbs. It was
years since I had finished high school, so I had forgotten all those
obscure things, so the classification test put me into the "1S" class.
Several weeks later, the head of the French department told me that I
was in the wrong class, and that I should move to the "1A" stream. I
still didn't remember how to do past subjunctives -- which one rarely
meets in practice, and anyway foreigners are expected to get those wrong
-- but my vocabulary put me outside the "raw beginner" category.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 24/01/2024 12:57, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 24/01/24 19:42, occam wrote:
>> On 23/01/2024 22:44, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>>> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened if
>>> English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though.  In
>>> French, which does have a future tense, that future tense is less
>>> often used these days. It is more common to use "je vais" (I am
>>> going) to express simple futurity, just as we do in English.
>>
>> Can you please email that observation - if true - to the compilers
>> of French Duolingo? It would make my life a lot easier. (Please don't
>> tell them you honed your French in Belgium.)
>
> In my Irish Duolingo lessons I often have to go to my bilingual
> dictionary. Like all dictionaries, it will tell me that a word has
> multiple senses, so a translation cannot be unique. But Duolingo is
> inflexible: it insists that only one of the translations is correct. I
> imagine that it's the same in their French lessons.

One of the early attractive features of (French) Duolingo was that if
you disagreed with their translation (or word choice) you could 'Report'
the error via a feedback feature, or via a discussion forum. This meant
that if enough people pointed the same error, the alternative answers
would be eventually included as acceptable.

If your alternative suggestion was accepted you would receive a
congratulatory message saying "we now accept your translation <xxx> for
<yyy>.

Alas, as their program matured, they stopped this feature. (Aside: I
recall my answer to "onze, douze, treize" as "11, 12, 13" was accepted.
I was chuffed.)

>
> I have noticed one exception. Irish has no indefinite article, so
> "dalta" can mean "student" or "a student". Duolingo does accept these
> variants. Perhaps it will accept some other things. My lessons haven't
> yet proceeded beyond the present tense.

Mine have, to future and conditional tenses. Some cases still puzzle me,
where a clear future statement in English (We'll...) requires a present
tense translation in French. Merde alors !

On 24/01/24 23:16, occam wrote:
> On 24/01/2024 12:57, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 24/01/24 19:42, occam wrote:
>>> On 23/01/2024 22:44, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>>> It is possible that the said weakening might not have happened
>>>> if English had had a true future tense. I doubt it, though.
>>>> In French, which does have a future tense, that future tense is
>>>> less often used these days. It is more common to use "je vais"
>>>> (I am going) to express simple futurity, just as we do in
>>>> English.
>>>
>>> Can you please email that observation - if true - to the
>>> compilers of French Duolingo? It would make my life a lot easier.
>>> (Please don't tell them you honed your French in Belgium.)
>>
>> In my Irish Duolingo lessons I often have to go to my bilingual
>> dictionary. Like all dictionaries, it will tell me that a word has
>> multiple senses, so a translation cannot be unique. But Duolingo
>> is inflexible: it insists that only one of the translations is
>> correct. I imagine that it's the same in their French lessons.
>
> One of the early attractive features of (French) Duolingo was that
> if you disagreed with their translation (or word choice) you could
> 'Report' the error via a feedback feature, or via a discussion forum.
> This meant that if enough people pointed the same error, the
> alternative answers would be eventually included as acceptable.
>
> If your alternative suggestion was accepted you would receive a
> congratulatory message saying "we now accept your translation <xxx>
> for <yyy>.

I'll have to look more carefully at the Irish option. So far I haven't
noticed any discussion fora, but perhaps they exist.

> Alas, as their program matured, they stopped this feature. (Aside: I
> recall my answer to "onze, douze, treize" as "11, 12, 13" was
> accepted. I was chuffed.)

I would love to get into the equivalent Spanish lessons, to explain that
"uno dos tres" means "one of those trays", but I probably wouldn't get
away with it.

>> I have noticed one exception. Irish has no indefinite article, so
>> "dalta" can mean "student" or "a student". Duolingo does accept
>> these variants. Perhaps it will accept some other things. My
>> lessons haven't yet proceeded beyond the present tense.
>
> Mine have, to future and conditional tenses. Some cases still puzzle
> me, where a clear future statement in English (We'll...) requires a
> present tense translation in French. Merde alors !

Duolingo has an interesting approach, in that it never explains what the
rules are. It just gives lots of examples. You are supposed to
extrapolate from those examples.

In Irish, one of the two "to be" verbs is "bi" with present tense "tá",
but in the Duolingo lessons the form "bhfuil" often appears. My
dictionary does not even mention that word. A web search tells me that
"fuil" is the dependent form of "tá", and from that I can deduce that
"bhfuil" is an eclipsed form of "fuil". (I won't try to explain eclipsis
unless someone insists. One of the weird features of the language.)
Again, my dictionary doesn't explain this, apparently because it is
something obvious to everyone. It merely records that "fuil" means "blood".

Now, Duolingo doesn't explain any of this. It simply gives enough
examples to let you deduce that "cá bhfuil" means "where is", and that
"an bhfuil" is the questioning form of "tá". It never, as far as I have
found so far, gives a table showing the present tense conjugation of a
verb. You have to deduce that from examples. Or, in my case, from a web
search.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Le 24/01/2024 à 11:24, Peter Moylan a écrit :
> On 24/01/24 20:26, Hibou wrote:
>>
>> As I see it, the problem with the French future tense is that it
>> sounds like the conditional, so is often misspelt (je verrai, je
>> verrais.)
>
> Despite the pronunciation difference? The people who taught me French
> took pains to point out that an -ai ending was pronounced é, while an
> -ais or -ait ending was pronounced è. If one's pronunciation is clear
> enough, the difference between the future and the conditional is
> obvious. But pronunciation evolves, so perhaps you're saying that that
> distinction is disappearing. My experience of real-life French
> pronunciation is a few years out of date by now. [...]

I'm not a reliable source on French pronunciation, but Laélia Véron is a
kent expert, and according to her the distinction is made in a few
regions, but not the majority:

<https://www.slate.fr/sites/default/files/file-20190319-60959-l5nlgv.png>

« Les résultats qui figurent sur la carte ci-dessus nous ont permis
d’observer qu’en Europe, les francophones qui font la différence entre
le futur /je mangerai/ prononcé avec /e/ et le conditionnel /je
mangerais/, /ɛ/ à l’oral, pour la première personne du singulier, se
retrouvent principalement en Belgique, en Franche-Comté et dans la
moitié septentrionale de la Suisse romande. / C’est en effet dans ces
zones que les locuteurs et locutrices du français ont gardé un système
phonologique plus riche qu’ailleurs » -
<https://www.slate.fr/story/174870/langue-francaise-serai-ou-serais-difference-prononciation-linguistique>

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 09:26:52 +0000, Hibou
<vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:

>Le 23/01/2024 à 21:44, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>
>> Many people have forgotten, I believe, that this "person-switching" was
>> a simple consequence of good manners at the time it was common. If we
>> remember that "shall" implies obligation and "will" indicates volition,
>> the "shall" in the first person indicated a self-deprecating modesty,
>> with perhaps a touch of noblesse oblige. Thus we have
>>
>> "I shall do this" (as is my duty)
>
>Hmm. I see 'I shall' as simple prediction. "If you keep on annoying me,
>I shall go ape" etc.. (It isn't my duty to go ape, and I'd not use
>'will' here, because it's not an act of will either.)
>
>'Shall' in the first person seems to have survived better in questions -
>"Shall we eat?"

Perhaps in the UK. In my experience, it's extremely rare in the US.

Peter Moylan wrote:

> Despite the pronunciation difference? The people who taught me French
> took pains to point out that an -ai ending was pronounced é, while an
> -ais or -ait ending was pronounced è.

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/voir/81420

Text-search for "tu verrais, si j'avais encore mes jambes !"
I hear a final é in "verrais".

--
Bertel, Denmark