I thought It would be fun to run through a few nice constructions in English. We might hear these all the time in films and TV series and understand them perfectly, but not have internalised them to the point of being able to use them actively in daily conversation. Throwing in such turns of phrase can really add a touch of class.
Shall and should
Today most speakers use “will” for the future, regardless who they’re talking about – “I will do this”, “you will do this”. But we might prefer the now slightly antiquated usage as follows. Use “shall” for I/we – “I shall go there tomorrow”, “we shall spend time together next week”. For the first person “will” is reserved for expressing a strong intention – “I WILL finish this job, however long it takes!”
The second and third person (you, he, they) is different. “Will” conveys the future tense – “he will arrive tomorrow”, and “shall” is used for commands or legalistic talk – “you shall not pass!”, “you shall pay the rent the first day of each month”.
Similarly, modern English prefers “would” to “should”. I won’t run through all the uses of these two words but note that “I would like to add that…”, “I would think that…” and “I would say that…” can be replaced with the older and more polite forms “I should like to add that…”, “I should think that…” and “I should think that…”.
“Mean to” (= intend)
A nice alternative for “intend to”. We use this construction idiomatically on a daily basis without thinking – as with “I didn’t mean to do that”, “did you mean to throw this away?”, “you mean to tell me that…?” and so on (and if you think about it, the “means” in “this word means…” also carries the same meaning of “intention”!). But moving away from these stock examples, just directly substituting “mean to” for “intend to” can sound nice and is a little less common:
- “I mean to do it” (or simply “I mean to”)
- “What do you mean to do?”
- “If you mean to apply for the job, …”
“For” (= due to)
“For” can mean “because of” or “due to” when followed by a noun. I was just watching an old clip of Only Fools and Horses. Trigger said “space – it’s everywhere!”, to which Del Boy replied “you can’t move for it!”. This is the “for xxx” construction in action. Some further examples:
- “You can’t see for the fog” (due to the fog)
- “You couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise” (because of the noise)
- “I couldn’t find it for all the books” (because all the books were in the way)
And I suppose “for” followed by a clause is a variation of this, as in “the streets were quiet, for everyone was watching the football”.
“For all” (= despite)
The example above about books included the phrase “for all” – but the ‘all’ here really attached to the following noun, “all the books”. However, using the block “for all” as a standalone construction shifts the meaning significantly from a “because of…” to something akin to “in spite of…”. An example from Sherlock Holmes comes to mind: “She loved him, for all her show of hate” (from A Musgrave Ritual). In other words, she loved him despite her seeming to hate him. A couple more examples:
- “He’s healthy, for all his complaints about aches and pains”
- “For all his money, he wasn’t happy” (note that we can even start our statement with “For all…” if we want)
The idea to keep in mind is that you follow “for all” with a fact (a noun or a clause) that you dismiss or wave away. So far so good, but now let’s complexify it a notch and consider the following situation. A woman is competent at what she does, but is working in an office environment which is not a meritocracy:
- “She’s perfect – for all the good it will do her”
What exactly does this mean? How is this construction to be explained? I think it’s short for something like “She will not get on there, for all the good that being perfect will do her”. We are dismissing or minimising the fact that it will do her some good. It is perhaps best to think of this case as a separate idiomatic construction, and not analyse it too closely! More of the same:
- “He studied hard, for all the good it did him” (he still failed)
- “The team played well, for all the good it did them” (they lost)
“Have” (arranging or wishing someone to do something)
First off some straightforward examples:
- “He had the waiter bring more glasses”
- “The teacher had the children line up “
- “She had him apologise” (she made/arranged for him to apologise)
- “I had it done” (I made arrangements so that it was done)
But an interesting variation is to throw in a “would”. I just sat through an episode of Game of Thrones, and counted this modal construction three times:
- “What would you have me believe?” (What do you want me to believe?)
- “Would you have me surrender?” (Do you want me to surrender?)
- “What would you have me do?” (What do you want me to do?)
The phrases in brackets are just loose translations. The “would” somehow carries an undertone of challenge or defiance.
That’s probably enough for one post. I obviously haven’t even scratched the surface. There is so much more to say and it’s an interesting topic so I might well make a series of it. Watch this space!