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wow>Is there a lawyer on the Board who would care to give the legal distinctions between "will" and "shall"?
Well, you may know that basic Western law (British & American, anyway) is based on the Torah - yes, whether you like it or not - and the TEN COMMANDMENTS - believe in them or not, as you wish - ALL translate to SHALL (not will), as in "Thou shall have no other gods before me" and "Thou shall not murder" (it's not kill, but murder... an important distinction), etc. etc.
So perhaps, after all, SHALL is the stronger of the two?
Shoshannah
Of course, Israeli law is basically the Torah, though we do use some concepts from British & American modern law and some Jordanian (from 1948-1967, but not the Islamic laws that require body dismemberment for crimes committed) and even some Ottoman laws still apply in some cases.
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Dear Shoshannah: remember the distinctions that have been made between the first and second persons. "I will" to me is stronger than "I shall". "Thou shalt" is stronger than "you will", unless the "will" is really emphasized.
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>tsuwm - a question: why would I BE agitated but HAVE agita?????
sorry, this one fell in the crack(s)...
because agitated is a verb (past tense) meaning disturbed
and agita is a noun meaning acid indigestion.
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wwh>remember the distinctions that have been made between the first and second persons. "I will" to me is stronger than "I shall". "Thou shalt" is stronger than "you will", unless the "will" is really emphasized.
Bill - that's what I always thought (and mostly still do), except for that Ten Commandments thing - I've been studying more on the 613 Mitzvot, so it was fresh in my mind which is why I brought it up. Ordinarily, I would have just agreed with the 'I will' part, but now, I'm not so sure. More thinking and perhaps examples would be helpful on this one!
Shoshannah
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tsuwm - well, why can't I seem to find 'agita' in my dictionary??? I was stopped when I read that post - never heard the word, and certainly no one I know over here (English speakers at least) uses it? Did someone just start using it as slang or what?
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>tsuwm - well, why can't I seem to find 'agita' in my dictionary??? what's with the continuing gamash of ?'s on this?! either get a bigger dictionary or try OneLook.com!? 
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Dear Shoshannah: even a heathen like me knows that the Ten Commandments were spoken by G_D, and His words had maximum force.
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I'm not a lawyer (and await Sparteye's more detailed elucidation on this), but having been involved in the negotiation of a couple of international treaties, I can tell you that the lawyers at the US Department of State feel that "shall" is strong stuff indeed. The first international agreement I've had anything to do with was full of that word, and it took FOREVER to get even the little pieces done, because "shall" was seen as so very strong and binding. Working on a less lofty agreement (I believe, in fact, we had to call it an "arrangement," as agreement meant a greater commitment than was intended), we had to use "should," because it was not going to be signed at the executive (i.e. Presidential) level.
Ever since I've had a very strong feeling that "shall" carries the most water among the wills, shoulds, woulds and coulds.
p.s. Sparteye - I imagine you know this, but I winced when the spellwrecker rendered your name as Spasm. It thinks mine is Hyman (yes, spelled with an "a" - which is not a word I know).
Hyla
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Ummm, I think Mav. was referring to prescriptive grammar rules rather than rules for living in general. The two should not be confused. Even if no English speaker ever again ended a sentence with a preposition (the point presently under discussion) there would be the same amount of murder, rape, and other violent crime in this sorry world.
Bingley
Bingley
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Bingley, you're right indeed. What with ranting and raving and sentences ending in prepositions, you really wonder sometimes what the world's coming to ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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