What's new

About the usage of "shall" in the U.K.

hirashin

Sempai
Donor
8 Apr 2004
2,720
63
63
Hello, British people. I need your help.

American people don't use "shall" very often. But I see that British people
use the word much more.
Would these sentences be used in the U.K. today?
(a) I shall die in a few months because I have an incurable disease.
(b) I shall go back to Britain next month.
(c) We shall leave for home before it gets too dark to see.

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin
 
'Shall' is not used much in British English either.
Its main use is in suggestions starting with 'Shall I...'.

Shall I put the kettle on and make us a nice cup of tea?

None of the sentences you gave are wrong, but because 'shall' is not often used, they sound a bit unnatural to me.
 
No, the reader can do at least two things:

1.) Stop doing Adolf Hitler imitations by scanning the horizon looking for typos.

2.) Stop being lazy by placing a semi-colon after the capital A in the URL, above.
 
Back
Top Bottom