I love dancing and would never decline this invitation, especially if you ask like Yul Brynner. It wouldn’t hurt if you come with your own ballroom either.

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But under any other circumstances, shall makes me wince. It’s a word that makes you sound either foreign (not necessarily a bad thing) or pretentious and archaic (not a good thing). Shall is used in England and in law.

English use

In England, shall can express the simple future for first person I and we, as in “Shall we have dinner together tonight?” Will is used in the simple future for all other persons. Using will in the first person expresses a bit more determination on the part of the speaker, as in “We will finish this project by tonight, by golly!” Using shall in second and third persons would indicate some kind of promise about the subject, as in “This shall be revealed to you in good time.”

If you use shall this way in Canada or the US, you write with an accent. It’s not a word we use. On this continent, we use will for the future simple tense.

Legal use

Lawyers love to use shall, but the plain language community recommends avoiding it. According to Prof. Joe Kimble of the Thomas Cooley Law School, lawyers regularly misuse it to mean something other than “has a duty to.” It has become so corrupted by misuse that it has no firm meaning.

Also, it’s not plain. Nobody uses shall in common speech. It’s one more example of unnecessary lawyer talk. You’d never hear, “You shall finish the project in a week.”

And from Plain Language, the US government site: The word “must” is the clearest way to convey to your readers that they have to do something. Shall is one of those officious and obsolete words that has encumbered legal style writing for many years. The message that shall sends to the reader is, “this is deadly material.” Shall is also obsolete–when was the last time you heard it used in everyday speech?

Besides being outdated, shall is imprecise. It can indicate either an obligation or a prediction. Dropping shall is a major step in making your document more reader-friendly. Don’t be intimidated by the argument that using must will lead to a lawsuit. Many agencies already use the word must to convey obligations. The US Courts are eliminating shall in favor of must in their Rules of Procedure.  And in Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba have amended their Interpretation Acts to say that must is to be interpreted as imperative.

The way I see it, dancing is imperative, and shall is not. Shall we dance?

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