Usage
The going to future is used when the speaker wishes to draw a connection between present events, situations, or intentions and expected future events or situations: "If you do not stop, you are going to be caught by the police and hauled back to jail." "Our houses are going to be swept away by the impending storm." This form sometimes indicates imminence but sometimes does not ("It's going to rain"; but "I'm going to visit Paris someday"); these same examples show that it sometimes indicates intention but sometimes does not. The "will" and "going to" constructions are often interchangeable. Both can be used in the past tense to denote former future intention (e.g. "I was going to eat dinner, but decided not to"; "I knew I would do it the next day") or former prediction ("It was going to rain"; "I thought it would rain the next day"). Since it usually expresses the present relevance of the future event or situation it is the future counterpart to the perfect, which expresses the present relevance of past events or situations; the two are sometimes contrasted as prospective and retrospective aspects.
| Going to | Perfect | |
|---|---|---|
| Past | I was going to eat | I had eaten |
| Present | I am going to eat | I have eaten |
| Future | ? I will be going to eat | I will have eaten |
| Conditional | I would be going to eat | I would have eaten |
(The future going-to construction is questionable; I will be going to eat would normally be read as indicating motion (lexical 'go') rather than intention, and would often be replaced by the adverbial construction of imminence I will be about to eat.)
In some contexts the going to form can express unconditionality while the will form expresses conditionality ("Don't sit on that rock—it's going to fall" means it's going to fall regardless of what you do, while "Don't sit on that rock—it will fall" means that it will fall conditional on your sitting on it). But in some contexts the reverse can be true ("After 1962 ended, I would be a star" unconditionally describes what subsequently did happen, while "After 1962 ended, I was gonna be a star" describes intent for a situation whose reality was conditional on the intent being carried out).
Read more about this topic: Going-to Future
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)