[CQ-Contest] Must vs Shall

[kr2q at optimum.net]

K9YC makes some good points.

I am not a lawyer and don't want to be one.  

I did find these:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/write/legal-docs/clear-writing.html
Scroll down to item #3

http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/bigdoc/fullbigdoc.pdf
Scroll down to page number 25 (pdf page 30)

https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/order/branding_writing/order1000_36.pdf
Chapter 2, 1.h.  (document page number 4, pdf page 5).

I also found, just to muddy the waters:

Until recently, law schools taught attorneys that "shall" means "must." That's why many 
attorneys and executives think "shall" means "must." It's not their fault. The Federal Plain 
Writing Act and the Federal Plain Language Guidelines only appeared in 2010. And the 
fact is, even though "must" has come to be the only clear, valid way to express 
"mandatory," most parts of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) that govern federal
 departments still use the word "shall" for that purpose.

These are all USA specs.  I wonder how other define Shall vs Must.  ???

Way back when (May, 1996), I wrote an article for NCJ where I ask sponsors to use plain 
language WITH EXAMPLES.  I can imagine that this discussion (shall vs must) would not 
be necessary if we saw an FAQ, such as:

Question: Am I allowed to operate WAE SSB on QRG 7.xxx (pick one or use a range, etc.)?

Answer: Yes or No (publish the correct answer from the sponsor's perspective).

No room for ambiguity and easily understood in any language (I hope).

YMMV

de Doug KR2Q