While that may or may not be true, you will find the use of shall to be the predominant term as compared to must when it comes to US law. As a former local government official responsible for writing local ordinances and for implementing or enforcing state law, I found the term shall to be used regularly whereas must is almost never used. Shall is clearly mandatory while must carries a connotation of some choice is left to the user/reader. Shall is unequivocally broad whereas must is individual. Also, let me recall that shall is used in one or more of the ten commandments whereas must does not. Lastly, I am not surprised that must shows up in a UL standard. It is typically American that something a little less precise is used in making regulations (standards) . I ran into this quite often when someone tried to find a loophole or way around some local ordinance, the semantic arguments presented sometimes ran to the hilarious. But once the semantics were cleared up, we either enforced or changed the ordinance. In the end, we always went to the use of shall and eliminated the use of other terms.
Scott [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [SMTP:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 19, 1999 3:28 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Product Safety Semantics I can't help making this innocuous comment. (English is not my major.) All I have to say is that Europeans are, as usually, more attached to purified English. Shall is stronger (more "dictatorial" or, if you want, directive) than must. >> -----Original Message----- >> From: John Juhasz [SMTP:[email protected]] >> Sent: Monday, July 19, 1999 7:18 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: RE: Product Safety Semantics >> >> Many thanks to those who responded to my query about the use/meanings of >> the words 'shall' and 'must' in product safety standards. >> >> Must and shall appear to be interchangeable. UL1950 uses both (couldn't >> make up there minds?), but 'must' appears a lot in the Annexes. EN60950 >> (IEC950) uses 'shall' consistently. From the responses I got, 'will' is >> thrown in for good measure. >> >> Therefore, shall, must, and will mean 'mandatory'. 'Should' is a >> recommendation. >> >> I must, shall, will remember this. >> >> John A. Juhasz >> Product Qualification & >> Compliance Engr. >> >> Fiber Options, Inc. >> 80 Orville Dr. Suite 102 >> Bohemia, NY 11716 USA >> >> Tel: 516-567-8320 ext. 324 >> Fax: 516-567-8322 >> --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators). --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
