[Magdalen] Rule Britannia.

[Marion Thompson]

I certainly sang it so long ago as a Canadian child, along with The 
Maple Leaf Forever.  Of course, the world map was pink in those days.

Marion, a pilgrim

On 10/4/2015 3:49 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen wrote:
>
> I watched a You Tube video clip of the Last Night at the Proms  from
> London's Royal Albert Hall this week.  This is always a fun spectacle  and
> it concludes with some British patriotic favorites.
>   
> There was the always performed, "Rule Britannia" heartily sung by the
> audience on the chorus with the sentence, "Britons never, never,  never
> shall be slaves."
>   
> This song, written in 1740 would not ordinarily be sung in the USA
> (though maybe Canada?), but if it was sung, the audience would most
> certainly tend to say, "Britons never, never, never will be slaves.
>   
> I dredged up a dim memory of my grammar teacher allowing that
> the rule is:  I and we matched with "shall" for simple future,  and
> "will" for insistent future.
>   
> Then you, he, she, it, & they matched with "will" for simple future,  and
> matched with "shall" for insistent future.
>   
> Hence the "Britons (they) never, never, never, shall be slaves.
>   
> But reading the history of the usage of these words, I see that these
> rules were never chiseled in granite, and the majority, even in  Britain,
> are currently not making these distinctions.
>   
> Anyway, would that the USA had such a fun summer series in such a
> location.  Somehow "Mostly Mozart" in Central Park, nice as it is,  doesn't
> quite measure up.
>   
>   
> David Strang.
>