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In the perfect continuous tense, shall have been is not used. Can you tell me why?

When I searched on Google, it showed the form as

subject + will have been + v (ing) + object.

I just want to know why we are not supposed to use shall have been and the reason behind it.

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  • Because shall has gone out of style. You can use it if you want, but you "shall" mark yourself as using outdated language.
    – Arm the good guys in America
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 15:18

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Actually, you can use 'shall have been'. If you google the phrase, you'll see many instances of it in historical quotes.

Most of these quotes date back at least a few decades, so it's fair to say that 'shall have been' is perfectly correct but it has fallen out of use compared to 'will have been'. In modern usage, 'will have been' is much more usual, and 'shall have been' would only be used in very formal writing such as legal contracts.

Incidentally, this is future perfect, not perfect continuous.

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  • "A few decades back" is no longer "modern usage"? What is it, Old English then?
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented May 21, 2017 at 16:02

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