"Should" is the worst word in the English language. "Gubernatorial" is kind of bad, but reminds me of peanut butter and jam sandwiches. "Envisage" and "utilize" are both terrible, but at least I know what they're getting at. "Should" is plain ambiguous.
Consider, if you will, a thirsty self:
Self: "When will my drink arrive?"
Other: "Your drink should come out with the mains, sir."
Now this obviously means "the drink will come out with the main meals unless something terrible and unexpected happens". In other words, Other expects it to come out with the mains, he anticipates it.
But there's another meaning,
Self: "When are drinks served?"
Other: "Drinks should be served with the mains."
See? This isn't anticipation, this is a moral imperative. Drinks should be served with mains, the nations should beat their swords into ploughshares, you should listen to what I have to say.
This comes up surprisingly often when talking about bugs and changes to software. I'm a little sick of it, but I don't have any good alternative.
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4 comments:
Shouldn't that be utilise?
Oh ho ho, how wrong you are!
UK English includes both "utilize" and "utilise", with "utilize" being preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary.
The insistence on using "-ise" is an overreaction to US English, which only allows "-ize".
Words that come directly from French are an exception (e.g. advertise, enterprise).
That's why I like shall. Apart from the fact that the meanings of will and shall can be inverted depending on the subject, which is just confusing, the two verbs gave a colour to the language that has been lost since everyone started using will for everything.
So when the fix is in all likelihood going to be completed by Thursday, you could say it will be in by then, when you're implying that you're determined for the fix to occur by Thursday you can say the it shall happen by then, and when you're talking about an imperative, you can say that this is what ought to happen.
And thanks also for reinforcing the appropriate use of the letter z. It's a great letter which is under-utilized.
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