"Yes, I will be"
This question was spurred by some comments that sprung underneath an ELL question of mine. The comments have since been deleted.
User 1: There's nothing wrong with "Yes, I will be". (I agree that "*I'll be" is incorrect though.)
User 2: Are you sure? I don't think, "Yes, I will be" is correct. I Ngrammed "yes i will be" and got a result of zero. Also Ngrammed "yes, i will be" and "yes" got positive results, but "i will be" got zero results, too.
User 1: @_______: Yes, I'm sure. Your ngram is wrong - remember the word "I" is always capitalised; if you fix that you do get results. (Most of them are "Yes, I will be xxx", rather than just "Yes, I will be.", but if you keep searching you will find odd examples of the latter.)
User 2: Cont'd from previous comment. I checked the Ngram results for "Yes I will be" and could not find any examples. Ngram results for "Yes, I will be." and "Yes I will be." were also zero.
User 2: @______ And I realize that "I" is always capitalized. But I hadn't turned on case sensitivity, so now I'm confused why "Yes i will be" and "Yes I will be" returns different results.
In light of the various Ngram and Google Books results reported by User 1, it appears that he may be right. Is he?
Why am I asking?
In every grammar and English course book I have ever used with learners or for myself, I have never ever read the short answer: Yes, I will be. These books simply don't "teach" this type of response, the classic short answers to questions beginning with the auxiliary, will, are always given as either Yes, I will or No, I won't. The two questions which I posted were the following:
- Will you be coming to the staff party on Thursday?
- Will you be having cake?
In the second question, I offered the following list of short answers:
- Yes, thank you.
- Yes, I will.
- Yes, I will be
- Yes, I will do.
- Why is answer no.3 grammatical?
- What evidence is there to support it?
- Is answer number 4 (above) ungrammatical?
An American user suggested that "Yes, I will do" was wrong. (Please refer to the linked question below, for further details)
Thank you
The ELL related questions which sparked the above discussion
- Why is “I'll be”, wrong as a short answer?
- Will you be having cake?
Solution 1:
Hmmf, well the question used to ask if someone could prove if this phrase was grammatical but this response inspired a edit removing that request for a proof. So what follows now seems a bit silly. I invite the first editor so inclined to delete this down to where it says "regarding edit".
Yes, I will be proving that someone can prove "Yes, I will be." is grammatical. I will do this by making up a grammar where the string "Yes, I will be." is the only grammatically correct string in the whole grammar. This makes proving it to be grammatical a tautology. It must be correct since it is how the grammar was defined. It's correct by definition.
Now, if you find that unsatisfying I invite you to cite a grammar definition that is formal enough to withstand the very idea of proofs. Proofs are rigorous but only as good as the context from which they emerge.
Otherwise we're just having a subjective argument. One that I'll win, only because my hat looks cooler. :)
As a side note, the only objection I know to this common usage is that it ends with a preposition. And we all know how Churchill felt about that.
Regarding edit:
- Yes, I will be
Why is answer no.3 grammatical?
It's not. Ya left off da period ya silly. No wait, that's punctuation. Yeah it's fine, if it means what it says. In fact I can imagine this exact phrasing being the point of the answer:
CandiedOrange took a piece of cake over to Mary while she was sitting with friends who were watching her unwrap gifts. CandiedOrange asked, "Will you be having cake?" Mary narrowed her eyes at this untimely interruption and responded, "Yes, I will be".
What evidence is there to support it?
Speaking of my hat, when Luke says "I'm not afraid" Yoda says, what to me sounded like the only non-mangled English he ever spoke, "You will be".
So don't go disrespecting my childhood hero. : )
- Yes, I will do.
Is answer number 4 (above) ungrammatical?
This is what I mean by 'if it says what it means': "Yes, I will do (nicely)." is perfectly grammatical. It also has nothing to do with the question:
Will you be having cake?
At least, not without some very convoluted backstory where you ARE the cake you're eating. I've read weirder stories, but that way lies madness.
What I'm pointing out here is that the question imposes a subset of possible meanings. There are ways to parse these words that result in them being grammatical but in the context of the question those grammatical meanings are nonsensical. So the answer is wrong. Just for a different reason.
Which means it's not the best answer to use in this question. You want something objectively ungrammatical. This is about English, not logic or philosophy.
So I vote for a new answer:
Yes, I will a.
If you know how to parse that into any meaning at all, you're more clever than I.