Here is a skit from a radio English conversation program, dealing with American English.
A: guest B: front desk clerk C: A's wife
(at the front desk of a hotel)
A: I have a reservation for a room under the name of Hal Lloyd.
B: I can't seem to pull up your reservation. Do you have a confirmation number?
A: It's 7228.
B: Here it is. We don't have any more standard rooms available. I'm going to put you in our deluxe room with a kitchenette.
A: That's fine with us.
(in the deluxe room)
A: The room is decorated very tastefully.
C: It's very nice! I'm going to sit down in this plush sofa and read.
I understand the difference between 'be going to' and 'will' like this.
- I'm going to go fishing today. (I planned it yesterday.)
- I'll go fishing today. (It suddenly occurs to me.)
However, two 'be going to' in the skit seem to be said without plan; it seems to me that two of them are exchangeable with 'will'. Therefore, I took it that 'be going to' is sometimes used in … kind of … will-using-like situations. That’s fine enough. However, …
What feeling makes you decide to choose 'be going to' over 'will' in this skit?
I'd like to know the emotion you express by choosing it. (or, are they equal in every way?)
Best Answer
'Will' is a modal verb and 'be going to' is its phrasal modal counterpart. Such verbs work for epistemological uses (logical/deductive) and for deontic (social/interactive) uses. The first question is about a social use here, a kind of promise that the hotel clerk is making. The choice of the phrasal modal 'be going to' indicates that the clerk's plan is already 'afoot' -- in other words, it conveys to the clients that their problem is half solved already, no doubts, no conditionality, just as if the solution HAD been planned yesterday and we were in the middle of carrying the plan out.
So, Totoro, I think what you have discovered is that when 'be going to' is chosen over 'will' in a situation like this one, the speaker is inviting the listener to feel as if he/she has been part of the speaker's thoughts for much longer than the spontaneous moment. That is good business discourse.
The second use in the dialog is screamingly artificial (and uses 'in' for 'on' to boot).