Will they or shall they?
No 11 in a series of articles about translating from Serbian (and other languages) into English
Recently, I translated a simple sentence that said: ‘The company expects its suppliers to conform to…(certain standards)’. The client called and said: “Can’t we say: ‘The company shall expect its suppliers…’. It makes it so much more formal, more forceful, like in a law!”
I had to disagree. But I had difficulty persuading the client, who spoke good English. It occurred to me that English writers often misuse this form too. Let’s look at where it comes from.
The standard English rule for a future tense is ?shall? in the first person, ?will? in others, so: 'I or we shall do this, he/she/it/you/they will do it': a simple statement of expectations.
If this is inverted, it expresses intention or determination: ?I will succeed’ (despite the difficulties), ?You shall do this!? (or you will be shot). Except in the first person, it is a kind of order from the writer to someone else. But watch out who is ordering whom to do what.
Laws often use ?shall? as an order (by the lawgivers) to someone do something. E.g. ?The Ministry shall publish the required regulations within 3 months of the entry into force of this law.? (If only). This is an order from the lawgivers to the ministry. But ‘This law will enter into force (or just ?...enters into force...?) on the day of its publishing’ – this is simply a fact, and does not need the ‘shall’ which, if used, would be an order from the lawgivers to the law itself. (Note that in EU legislation you will often find ‘shall enter…’. I think it’s daft.)
Similarly, if a law on amendments to a law says that a paragraph is changed, then it's changed. Saying that the paragraph shall be changed suggests that anyone reading and obeying the law in the future has to start changing paragraphs.
Read the whole article, and previous ones in the series at https://halifax-translation.com/news
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