Re: Proposed ballot for the constitutional amendment
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 22:44:28 +0100, Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> said:
> On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 20:15, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>>
>> >> your ballot; the voting mechanism shall not be able to decrypt
>> >> your message.
>> > I'm no native speaker of english, but that "shall" seems strange
>> > to me. Maybe a "will" would be more appropriate?
>>
>> No. I was taught English which may well be considered archaic in
>> todays post-modernistic world; however, the usage falls under the
>> the colored future system (described in
>> http://www.bartleby.com/116/213.html).
>>
>> In an expression of the speaker's (not necessarily the subject's)
>> wish, intention, menace, assurance, consent, refusal, promise,
>> offer, permission, command, &c. -- in such sentences the first
>> person has will/would, the second and third persons shall/should.
> Nevertheless, that use of "shall" is so strange that I had to read
> the sentence twice to understand it. It is not correct English.
So you say. I beg to differ. (You should really examine the
sentence you quote -- that it being the speaker's intent, not the
subject's, and that the third person form was used).
> The sentence does not fit the grammatical rule you quote, because a
> voting mechanism is incapable of having or expressing an intention
> or purpose. It is just a thing, and you are merely describing how
> it will behave, therefore the proper word to use is "will".
Will implies a wish as well. You think Devotee can have
wishes, but not intents? You should probably learn about the concept
of anthropomorphism.
In any case, this is no longer open to debate.
manoj
--
"You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed
adultery, are now extinct." Somerset Maugham
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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