MUST WILL SHALL

I’m trying to understand something: The alchemy that seems to permeate portions of my workplace that makes “shall” preferable to “will” or “must.”

Today I made an appeal to our own writing standard. Follow, brave souls, if you dare.

Here are the definitions I’m working with:

Must Denotes requirement. Will and shall are alternatives. Compare should and may.

May Denotes permission, not a requirement or recommendation. Do not confuse with can, which usually denotes ability. Compare shall and should.

Shall Denotes a requirement. Will and must are alternatives. Compare should and may.

Should Denotes recommendation. Compare shall and may.

Will Denotes requirement, but is more dependent on sentence structure and tone than must and shall, which are alternatives. Compare should and may.

I want to concentrate on must, shall, and will, but included may and should since they are referred to in the definitions.

I feel like, looking at these definitions, that must, shall, and will are synonyms. They mean the same thing. Even taking in the added wordage that will’s definition brings into the situation, I fail to see the difference between the three words. (Will’s extra wordage could, in fact, apply to shall or must, so I see no reason for it to be there. The meaning of all words is dependent on sentence structure and tone. And tone is something we should weed out of technical documents as much as possible.)

Yet I find myself between the proverbial rock and hard place, regarding these words. The rock, engineers reasoning (I believe correctly, based on the definition discussion above) there’s no difference in meaning, and the hard place, preferring shall to will but more importantly gatekeeps what wording is blessed and what wording is frowned upon.

I tried looking at what others are saying about must will shall, and I found a lot of people either throwing their hands up and saying, "Yeah, there's no difference," to "there is a difference because reasons."

This is my favorite.

He seems to favor shall to will, but I feel like he cherrypicks his reason, denigrates opinion that varies from his own while he opines that he's right.

Wikipedia drones on about English modal auxiliary verbs but doesn't really accomplish much in telling me the difference either.

I don't see winning any battles here, though. I shall have to concede. Because this is all I'm really getting:

If You Feel Guilt, that's Good

A little note for you from the “Guilt is Good’ department.

This from Susan Cain’s book “Quiet,” which I’m currently reading and have written about before:

(As an explanation, she’s writing about an experiment in which youngsters are handed a toy designed to be broken easily by an adult who tells them this is their very favorite toy and that they should be careful with it. At the conclusion of the experiment, the children are shown the mended toy and told by the adult that everything is OK, after their reaction to the broken toy and the adult’s dismay over its state is observed.)

In our culture, guilt is a tainted word, but it’s probably one of the building blocks of conscience. The anxiety these highly sensitive toddlers feel upon apparently breaking the toy gives them the motivation to avoid harming someone’s plaything the next time. By age four, according to [developmental psychologist Grazyna] Kochanska, these same kids are less likely than their peers to cheat or break rules, even when they think they can’t be caught. And by six or seven, they’re more likely to be described by their parents as having high levels of moral traits such as empathy. They also have fewer behavioral problems in general.

“Functional, moderate guilt,’ writes Kochanska, “may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, adaptive behavior in school, and harmonious, competent, and prosocial relationships with parents, teachers, and friends.”

Feeling guilty about anything? That’s good. Exercise that empathy and personal responsibility.

Chop Chop Dig Dig Chop Chop Dig Dig . . .

Had the following conversation on the family group chat earlier today. No response yet on the Simpsons video. I'll let you know if I survive.

SNAE!

 

Extroverts, Shush! Or: "Shaddap, Ralphie."

 I’m reading “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” by Susan Cain, a lucky find at the local thrift store.

It’s . . .  enlightening.

First, for its discussion of our evolution from the Culture of Character, starting at the turn of the last century, to the Culture of Personality, the raging wildfire of alphas and grifters and even presidents to whom popularity and personal branding are far more important than, you know, leadership and character.

The book focuses on how the concept of extroverts versus introverts has skewed and is skewing perceptions of leadership in some pretty terrible ways.

In the book she talks about attending (in the lowest-paid tier) a Tony Robbins seminar bent on making extroverts out of everyone in what sounds like the most painful way possible:

[Usher} Stacy asks if I’ve brought my meals with me. It seems a strange question: Who carries their supper from New York City to Atlanta? She explains that I’ll want to refuel at my seat; for the next few days, Friday through Monday, we’ll be working fifteen hours a day; from 8 am to 11 pm, with only one short afternoon break. Tony will be onstage the entire time, and I won’t want to miss a moment.

Also:

Greeters wearing UPW T-shirts and ecstatic smiles line the entrance, springing up and down, fists pumping. You can’t get inside without slapping them five. I know, because I try.

This is all that came to mind:

Quickly the focus shifts, of course, to the grift, where for more money you can get seats closer to the stage – though attendees are encouraged to get up on their folding chairs and dance while Robbins does performative gestures on the Jumbotron, trying to foist investments of $45,000 yearly on attendees so they can go on vacation with Robbins and other like-minded power-oozing extroverted morons to connect and expand and network until light shines out of their bellybuttons and Robbins can afford two castles in Del Mar, California.

This is contrasted with the story of Rosa Parks, who encountered the same racist bus driver eleven years before the incident that led to the Montgomery bus boycott and who only got on the bus again absentmindedly all those years later because she was extra tired from standing on her feet ironing all day.

Guess which of the two has mightier power in our Cult of Personality today; it’s not the one who was overlooked by even the New York Times when the boycott proved successful and the Supreme Court called separate but equal on the bus unconstitutional.

True, I am an introvert myself, father to another introvert. Hoping as I read this I can better understand myself and maybe help that son of mine. I know he’s struggled with introversion in some ways holding him back. He’s intelligent and a hard worker, but he’s struggled to find employment because for most of the jobs he’s applied for, they pre-screen in ways that weed out introverts. (He’s talked about a few “personality tests” he’s had to take and it’s clear the questions skew to find those who love working with others or in groups or whatnot, and when he answers honestly that he’d rather work on his own, he’s screened out.)

Just a word to you extroverts out there: We introverts are always asked to step out of our comfort zones and mask or fake or cope or whatever it is we have to do to succeed in the extrovert world. Why is it no one asks extroverts to step outside of their comfort zones and recognize that they talk too damn much, that introverts can be effective workers, co-workers, and leaders when given the chance and shouldn’t have to be forced to play-act all the damn day just to bring home a paycheck?