09.26.08
I think that I shall never see
I shall be brief. Or will be brief. Or something. I share the usage confusion of the Motivated Grammar blog, in the recent post “In which I realize I’ll never use ’shall’ as an Englishman would”:
I [use the word] intermittently, and I have a fairly clear idea in my head of a few instances when one ought to use shall:
(1) We shall overcome.
(2) Shall we dance?
(3) You Shall Know Our Velocity!Okay, that’s about it.
I shan’t look for more examples, either. But in case the precise use of will and shall confuses you, consider this 1900 visual guide presented by Motivated Grammar:
To me, this kind of looks like a Buck Rogers decoder ring, or a map of Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell. Check out the example in the upper left: “Because what must be will be” (the future’s not ours to see! Que sera, sera, which I believe to be the official elevator music between at least two Circles of Hell).
, 
and 
. Feel free to 
SoupAddict Karen said,
September 26, 2008 at 8:48 am
One of the inner circles commands me, “Thou Wilt.” Being the end of week, and that I barely dragged myself into my own circlet of hell cubelet, thank you, I believe I shall wilt….
JohnnyB said,
September 26, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Yes I noticed the “Because what must be will be” in the upper left - explaining when to use “shall”