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Shall constitute: Difference between revisions
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:—[[René Descartes]], ''Discourse on the Legal Method'' (1683)}} | :—[[René Descartes]], ''Discourse on the Legal Method'' (1683)}} | ||
A legal way of saying “is”. | A [[Legal eagle|legal eagle-approved]] way of saying “is”. | ||
“Shall [[constitute]]” scores over “[[be]]” in that it is highly ''regular'', and the different forms in a given tense require no [[conjugation]]: | |||
I ''shall constitute'' | I ''am''<br> | I ''shall constitute'' | I ''am''<br> | ||
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They ''shall constitute'' | They ''are''<br> | They ''shall constitute'' | They ''are''<br> | ||
But that is no reason to favour it. | But this is because you bolted it to shall, a modal verb.that is no reason to favour it. It is ''the most violent offender against the mores of plain English. | ||
“Be” is the citadel; it sits on a velvet cushion in the most heavily fortified dungeon of the castle’s keep. There is ''no'' plainer word than ''be''. It is the first word a non-English speaker learns on her long journey to being culturally hegemonised. There is no-one — not the dullest first grade student, who doesn’t understand profoundly what it means. | “Be” is the citadel; it sits on a velvet cushion in the most heavily fortified dungeon of the castle’s keep. There is ''no'' plainer word than ''be''. It is the first word a non-English speaker learns on her long journey to being culturally hegemonised. There is no-one — not the dullest first grade student, who doesn’t understand profoundly what it means. | ||
“Constitute” adds nothing to “be”. It is no more specific, no more precise, there is no nuance of meaning it captures that “be” does not. | “Constitute” adds nothing to “be”. It is no more specific, no more precise, there is no nuance of meaning it captures that “be” does not. It just sounds cleverer. | ||