Then, I decided I could use some other way to express the future, by writing as if I were speaking: “I’m going to jump off this roof!” or “I may fall off this roof, if I don’t hold on tightly.” I think the verb itself can help make the distinction between shall and will: jumping indicates intent, whereas falling indicates an accident may follow.

I imagine I am not that different from your other followers, in that I like being a “careful writer,” and I must admit I’m so relieved to know that I no longer have to agonize between these two auxiliary verbs. Nonetheless, I guarantee that I shall be thinking about this topic, whenever it comes up in writing, or speaking, for some time.

Thank you so very much for your most interesting blog, letter, column, or whatever it’s properly called. I’m dictating this on my phone, and I have to keep going back and checking to make sure it has not decided to correct my grammar!

Thank you for this information. Our tendency is to keep to the outskirts of the legal realm. Our paragraph near the end regarding The Chicago Manual of Style does briefly touch on shall and legal requirements.

We understand and appreciate why this subject might seem to lose direction, a point we emphasize in the article. You’ll note that other guidance we include from other sources only spins the needle more.

To your direct reference to the English of Churchill’s day, what confuses is that it has one set of rules for the basic use of the future tense (shall for the first person, will for the second and third). A second set of rules looks to differentiate a belief from a promise. Under this second rule set, Churchill is speaking of his nation’s promise to resist the Germans as opposed to his belief it will. The teachers of his day would thus have advised him to use will.

We agree with you that choosing one auxiliary verb, preferably will, would both create distance from archaic usage and simplify otherwise confusing subtleties.

Two other thoughts—shall may be considered archaic in some circles, therefore, maybe we should just use will across the board.