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Shall: Difference between revisions
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If, in other words, you’re going to be a dick about it, then you have to be careful which you mean, especially if you are one of these new age folk who like to write contracts in the first and second person. There again, if you’re one of those, you’re not likely to be using any kind of [[shall]] in the first place, because “[[must]]” [[will]] do, and it won’t make you sound like such an {{tag|egg}}. | If, in other words, you’re going to be a dick about it, then you have to be careful which you mean, especially if you are one of these new age folk who like to write contracts in the first and second person. There again, if you’re one of those, you’re not likely to be using any kind of [[shall]] in the first place, because “[[must]]” [[will]] do, and it won’t make you sound like such an {{tag|egg}}. | ||
Still, “[[shall]]” has its defenders, including no less a doyen than that self-styled style guru and all-round Robert Fripp of [[plain English]] advocacy, {{author|Ken Adams}} who, in his epochal ''[[A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting|A Manual of Applicable Style for the Drafting of Contractual Instruments]]'' sets out, over ten pages of tightly-numbered paragraphs, his reasons why | Still, “[[shall]]” has its defenders, including no less a doyen than that self-styled style guru and all-round Robert Fripp of [[plain English]] advocacy, {{author|Ken Adams}} who, in his epochal ''[[A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting|A Manual of Applicable Style for the Drafting of Contractual Instruments]]'' sets out, over ten pages of tightly-numbered paragraphs, his reasons why “[[shall]]” is still the top dog when it comes to articulating one party’s ''duty'' to the other. Now Mr. Adams is a fellow of strong opinions about inconsequential things, we lose interest in the debate by page sixteen and just feel, viscerally, that “shall” is a fusty old word, no-one uses it anymore in normal conversation, “[[must]]” will do perfectly well instead and is more idiomatic. “Not so!” squeaks Mr. Adams, and carries on at some length but, readers, the [[JC]]’s eyes glaze over — by all means buy his doorstop if you’re interested in his argument and have a [[monkey]] to spare; his Twitter feed is a riot too, if that’s your bag — but in our 30 years of commercial law we’ve not found a clinching justification to use “shall”, so we shall not start doing so now. | ||
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