[Magdalen] Rule Britannia.

[ME Michaud]

Consider the translation of the Ten Commandments?

If you think of "will" as willing something to happen (do people still talk
about will in the twenty-first century, or is it all
go-with-the-flow-and-good-luck?) it makes sense that the Puritanical
influences on our language would insist on that distinction.
-M

On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 3:49 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> 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.
>