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From: Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Is this sentence correct ?
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 14:34:19 +0000
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On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 04:23:01 GMT, Miss Elaine Eos
<Misc@*your-shoes*PlayNaked.com> wrote:
> In article <VBRjf.34855$6e1.27926@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
> "Tom" <Tom@Metroplex.com> wrote:
>
>> Both sentences are correct but have slightly different meanings.
>>
>> If I were to be born again, I shall be a great scholar. This is similar to:
>>
>> If I were to be born again, I will be a great scholar. Will and shall
>> denotes certainty.
>>
>> Where as:
>>
>> If I were to be born again, I should be a great scholar. Should denotes
>> uncertainty.
>>
>> I should be a great scholar but I may not.
>
> Normally, your statements about shall & should are correct but -- in
> this instance, I think -- they are used slightly different.
".. slightly differently" -- it's an adverb.
> "If I were to be born again, I shall be a great scholar" sounds a bit
> off to my [American] ear. It's not QUITE mixed-tenses, but it has that
> same "not quite right" ring to it.
The subjunctive is difficult to get right, and is often mangled in
modern English (and American), many people use 'was' instead of 'were'.
It's one of the oddities of English tenses that an apparent past plural
('were') is used for a singular future. In modern English the present
is often heard instead ("If I am to be born again") with an implication
of slightly more certainty (or at least less uncertainty).
> "If I were to be born again, I should be a great scholar" sounds as if
> it states the great-scholar-ness of the speaker's future self with
> certainty, but using a slightly outdated British usage. In that usage,
> "should" is sometimes used interchangeably with "would", so the sentence
> REALLY means "if I were to be born again, I would be a great scholar."
In general, 'shall' and its derivatives imply something which is not
under control of the speaker and 'will' and its derivatives imply that
it is the intention of the speaker.
Both 'should' and 'would' are more uncertain than 'shall' and 'will':
If ... I shall...
If this happens then that will also happen whether I want it or not.
If ... I should...
If this happens then that may happen whether I want it or not.
If ... I will...
If this happens then that will happen because I want it.
If ... I would...
If this happens (about which I am not certain) then that will happen
because I want it.
> Said with the same "old fashioned" formal-sounding tone as "Yardwork? I
> should have thought you'd rather go fishing, on a nice day like today."
> See how "should" means "would", in this sentence? Same thing.
The line is blurred there but the same aspect of the will of the speaker
is still present, just not as important. It's made more complicated by
being in the past, and the speaker has no control over events in the
past anyway.
The same applies to "I should wash the dishes" versus "I would wash the
dishes". Both have a negative conjuction 'but' at the end (although in
the first it is often elided), the first implies that it is an outside
force (often a parent) which wants the dishes washed, in the second the
speaker is willing to wash the dishes but something prevents them ("I
would wash the dishes but I have to do homework").
Chris C
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