HUZZAH! Banned from Rentech.com!
ZephyrZodiac:
Both are correct, just have different meanings.
The first is a prediction - I am going to drown, and there is nobody to save me!
The second is and intention - I am going to drown, and I will not let anyone save me!
ElviraGoth:
Well, I looked up "shall" in my dictionary, this edition is from 1998.
It says, "Its function is to indicate, now chiefly in formal discourse." Past tense is "should". One of the definitions is "Inevitability", one is "Command".
So the first one is: it is inevitable (beyond my control) that I am going to drown, and no one is willing to save me.
The second one: I am going to drown, and it is my command that no one save me.
Does that sound like I understood what you just said?
Edit: And I also must say good night. Will check back tomorrow!
Sandilou:
Quote from: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 August 19, 02:09:51
Since the difference in sense between "may" and "can" is quite distinct, the teacher concerned seems to need educating! I always remember when I was teaching, if a child put up their hand and asked "Please Miss, can I go to the toilet" I would reply, "Oh, yes, I should think so!" Then when they got up to leave the room, I'd ask, "And just where do you think you're going?"
I won't finish the conversation, as I'm sure you can all work out the ending!
ZZ I thought that it was just me showing my age! I've been obsessed with teaching 'Mother May I?' as in 'Please may I?' to kiddies asking 'Can I...?'
Please don't let me get started on the 'I need' generation that's emerged this millenium: You will find that children cannot distinguish between 'I need' and 'Please may I have?'. They mean totally different things to me, but not to them. With me, their need continues until the brain kicks in and a polite request rather than a blunt statement is made.
I actually asked a class of mine to try out 'Please may I?' on their relatives for homework, and quite a few of them came back the next day and said that they'd earned rewards for being polite. Only goes to show how language and expectations change over time.
J. M. Pescado:
Heh, well, in my line of work, things get even shorter. To express a need, one simply indicates the lack of the needed object: For example, "NO BULLETS!". This can be further abbreviated to simply "BULLETS!" if it is apparent that you don't have any.
baratron:
Quote from: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 August 18, 07:09:31
Actually, we say, "next Tuesday week" here in the UK, so it wouldn't sound odd to us!
Do "we"? I've never heard that before in my life! "Next Tuesday" - the next time a Tuesday occurs. "Tuesday week" - the second Tuesday that is to occur. "Next Tuesday week" - wtf? The next time a second Tuesday occurs?! On a related note, a strange thing in English is the word "bimonthly". It means both twice a month and every 2 months. If you're thinking about having a bimonthly meeting, do make sure the rest of your committee has agreed on what this means, as one meaning is 4 times more frequent than the other :).
Things that bother me immensely when spelled incorrectly: "Their", "They're" and "There"; "To", "Too" and "Two"; "Its" and "It's". I was taught the difference between these constructions at the age of 6 or 7 in primary school, and then had this reinforced throughout my learning of English. Clearly I am old ::). The only one I can make an exception for is possessive its, because apostrophes are used to show possession in the rest of English (the genitive case), so it's rather strange that possessive its doesn't have one. I remember it because there's a usenet newsgroup called alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe - I used to post there, back when I did usenet.
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