Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 15

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June 15

The difference between "should" and "ought to"

Can anyone tell me the difference between how "should" and "ought to" are supposed to be used (in a nit-picky formal sense, not necessarily how they are used today). The dictionary definitions seem to be the same to me; but I heard a story about a cigarette commercial in the 1950s or 1960s being criticized for using the slogan "tastes good like a cigarette should" when correct grammar would have been "like a cigarette ought to" (which obviously doesn't rhyme). I always thought the two were interchangeable, as do many web forums, with some concluding "ought to" is stronger and more moral, or that "should" is stronger and more moral. Can anyone speculate on the difference, or on the specific error in the cigarette commercial. Thanks! 71.17.166.98 03:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess the "problem" with "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" is that "should" is a auxilliary verb and isn't supposed to stand by itself. So I suppose you're supposed to say, "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should taste." Or, if you're really going to be pedantic, "Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should taste." Which, of course, sounds ridiculous. -- Mwalcoff 04:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The "problem" with the slogan was nothing to do with "should"; it was the use of "like" as a conjunction. I remember one ad campaign where it was shown crossed it out replaced with "as", and they asked "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?" (Me, I want no smoking, thank you.) --Anonymous, like, June 15, 2007, 05:50 (UTC).

I, too, understood the usual (and correct) objection to have been to the use of like conjunctionally; our article about the slogan (which, I was happily amazed to fine, contains an image of a poster of the "good grammar or good taste" campaign Anonymous recalls) references only the like/as issue, although the issue that Mwalcoff raises (which is, after all, that which underlies the question) may well have occurred to some. Joe 06:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Some remarks on should versus ought to in general. A sentence like that should have done the job is fine, whereas ought to is not wrong, but sounds a bit awkward in combination with the perfect tense: that ought to have done the job. This is even stronger with negations: this should not be a problem is fine, unlike the awkward this ought not to be a problem. Similarly with forms of hedging: maybe you should write a book about this versus maybe you ought to write a book about this. Furthermore, not all uses of should express obligation or expectation (for example in the British usage: I should think so), and when they don't, should cannot be replaced by ought to. But apart from that, I can't think of examples where one is stronger or more "moral" than the other, only where one sounds better than the other.  --Lambiam^Talk 06:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, all of Lambiam's "ought to" sentences sound perfectly natural to me. I suspect some dialectical differences may obtain (perhaps "oughta" is congenial to me because I was raised on Southern U.S. English?). Wareh 13:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I was going to say the same thing. Lived in Virginia most my life, and none of the examples sounds "wrong", but I will admit the the 'ought to's sound a little more vernacular and I wouldn't use them in writing.-Andrew c 14:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've done a little test, feeding several sentences to Google search both in a should form and in a ought to form. They are the three sentences above plus two more, the additional two (unlike the first three) being present tense and positively declarative. Here are the results:

Google hit counts

	should	ought to	ratio
that ... have done the job	3990	1	3990:1
this ... not ... be a problem	167000	2700	62:1
maybe you ... write a book	528	8	66:1
you ... see this	214000	103000	2:1
we ... be angry	10300	2350	4:1

The observed dramatic preference for should for the first three ought to convince you that I'm not all alone in this cold and cruel world with my sense of what sounds natural or awkward.  --Lambiam^Talk 14:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to add the 37,400 results for the quoted string "you oughta be in pictures" (that's the title of a hit song from 1934). --LarryMac | Talk 15:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't have Wikipedia an entry on that song? The string occurs in eight articles. This makes of course that line in the matrix meaningless, although it does not invalidate the conclusion. I've replaced it by: you ... see this in the hope that You Oughta See This is not another hit title.  --Lambiam^Talk 17:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so you're manipulating the data to support your conclusion! Why I oughta ... (32,800 hits, by the way).  ;-) --LarryMac | Talk 20:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Tangent: is there a way to know what keyword shows up in the most articles as a redlink? —Tamfang 02:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the hard research ;) -Andrew c 15:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

In a nit-picky formal sense, should is the past tense of shall (cf. would/will). However, I am hard-pressed to think of a way to use it that way. Tomorrow I shall go to the library, yesterday I should have gone to the library (?!). And for what it's worth, ought derives from the same roots as owe and own. --LarryMac | Talk 13:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Not "in a nit-picky formal sense," but "historically" or "etymologically." Wareh 13:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm another one who finds the "ought to" examples perfectly natural, and I'm very surprised by the more extreme Google ratios (surprised enough to suggest that Google is suffering some temporary malfunction: anyone want to try a different search engine?). Further, I would say that there is a distinction in meaning in the perfect-tense case. To me, "that should have done the job" can be followed (explicitly implicitly) either by "but it didn't" or by "but I haven't checked to see if it did", whereas "that ought to have done the job" carries a strong suggestion of "but it didn't" or at least "but I don't think it did". --Anonymous, June 15, 22:20 (UTC).

I always thought that "should" and "ought to" were synonymous except that "ought to" was a bit stronger, similar to "really should", with "really ought to" being stronger than "really should". --Candy-Panda 07:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes you should say "ought to", and sometimes you ought to say "should".  :) JackofOz 06:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

puke

This is a serious question. Which of the synonyms for "to puke" is the most grossing out? —AldeBaer 13:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The puke entry needs "cleanup." Priceless. I'll say "upchuck" since it brings to mind chunks of vomit rising into one's mouth. Recury 13:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, upchuck it is! I also noticed "to ralph" is missing on wikt. —AldeBaer 13:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think "sell the Buick" is the grossest. ;) Seriously, though, there are some pretty non-notable synonyms over at wiktionary. What is this, the urban dictionary?-Andrew c 14:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Where does "sell the Buick" come from? Marnanel 15:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

If you throw up really bad in a car it will stink forwever, and you'll want to sellCzmtzc 17:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC) it.

You're either being cute or are clueless about the origin of this phrase. "Buick" is onomatopoeia for the sound made by puking (roughly, "byeccch!"). +ILike2BeAnonymous 05:06, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

"Blow chunks" for the win. --TotoBaggins 14:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

'Chunder' is a nice one, as in Pink Floyd's "Delicate Sound Of Chunder [sic]". Manga 22:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"Tossed her cookies" is a personal favorite. StuRat 01:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't "punching the round-trip meal ticket" on that list? It's a disgrace! I remember an Aussie song about the singer's fondness for the "old Pacific sea" above all others for chundering.

Peter Bagge once drew a poster illustrating these various metaphors... Rhinoracer 13:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I also like "worshipping the porcelain goddess". StuRat 20:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

linguistics

what are the linguistics terms

Are you looking for a list of them? There's enough of them to fill a few book volumes. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 19:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

You could start with List of linguistics topics. —Angr 20:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Question about capitalization

Can someone please provide guidance on the following grammar issue, as I have received multiple contradictory answers. Perhaps more than the final answer, I am also looking for an authorative source or citation that addresses this issue. When using the word "black" to describe one's race, is that term capitalized or not? Thus, is it correctly "Black" or "black"? Again, I am looking for an authoritative source that provides the answer, as much as the answer itself. Many thanks. (JosephASpadaro 21:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC))

First, I want to point out this is an orthography issue, not a grammar issue. (If you can't hear something in spoken language, it isn't grammar.) Second, I will predict that you won't find one single, authoritative answer to this question. It's a matter of style. Some authors capitalize "Black" (and for that matter, "White") in discussions of race; others don't. —Angr 21:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

As a professional editor with some years of experience, I agree that there is no universal rule for this. The only rule is that the usage must be consistent: if you capitalize "White", you must capitalize "Black" and vice versa. If one is lower-case, the other must be as well. Whether to capitalize or not is a question of style. Different publications approach this differently.

Politically, it is probably safer to capitalize both terms, to ward off accusations from members of a group that the group is being slighted by being lower-cased. This accusation is not without justification if other terms used to label racial or ethnic groups, such as "Asian" or "Latino", are capitalized. Since most ethnonyms are capitalized, I personally would argue for capitalizing "Black" and "White". However, it is not incorrect to lower-case both of them. Marco polo 21:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

This is an issue of style, not correctness. I'm sure style guides differ, but as a point of reference, the Chicago Manual of Style indicates that "Names of ethnic and national groups are capitalized", but that "designations based loosely on color are usually lowercased, though capitalization may be appropriate if the writer strongly prefers it." Some examples they give: Aborigines, African Americans, Hopis, Romanys; blacks, people of color, whites, Negro, Caucasian. - Nunh-huh 22:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"Black" in this sense was more often capitalized, I think, in the 1960s when the term was first becoming politically correct than it is now. Of course, if you simply contrive to never use the word anywhere but the start of a sentence, you don't have to decide! :-) --Anonymous, June 15, 22:25 (UTC).

If referring to residents of the US, you could just use African American, capitalizing both A's, as they are proper nouns. (Caucasian is also capitalized)-Andrew c 22:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no one authority in English written style, but if you want to cite authoritative sources, both the Collins Concise Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors recommend capitalizing Black and White in that context. As stated in Hart's Rules, "The general rule is [that] capitalization makes a word more specific and limited in its reference." After all, White people are not really white, like paper; they are pale brown.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. This was a helpful discussion. I appreciate the input. (JosephASpadaro 21:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC))

I increasingly see "Gay" and "Lesbian" capitalised...I've adopted that usage myself. Apart from considerations of respect, it also helps to distinguish from gay = merry. Rhinoracer 13:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)