Pedants' Paradise

[vinteuil]

http://www.englishpage.com/minitutorials/subjunctive.html

Oh well, I'm only a writer

... I have a feeling that it is our friends the Americans who make more use of the subjunctive - British usage tending to ignore it or to find other ways of shaping the sentence. Perhaps some of our professional linguists might know? I see that the link provided by Serial is a Namerican one ( "Math" as a subject... )

[visualnickmos]

My father was a stickler for "I should like / We should like... " ; he objected to "I would like / We would like... " on the grounds that "I would / We would... " already contains the element of liking, willing. I find as a consequence I usually say "I should like... " - but am not overly irritated by those who opt for "I would like..."

"should" sounds wrong to me when used in this way; doesn't should mean something similar to 'have to' or 'is supposed to?'

I expect that there is really no real set-in-stone version that is deemed as being the absolute right or wrong usage.

[jean]

...doesn't should mean something similar to 'have to' or 'is supposed to?'

It can do, as I posted above:

But the trouble with using should as part of first-person shall is that it collides with the much more common use of should for obligation, and can be ambiguous.

[vinteuil]

... ah, Jean has replied.

But the odd thing about shall/should and will/would is that if the distinction between persons adumbrated above really works, then the "ought" element of "shall/should" is supposed to 'drop out' in the first person use - "I shall see you tomorrow" - "I should like to thank you" in the same way that the "willing/wanting" element of "will/would" drops out in the second and third person use - "you will find it on page two", "she would expect that, wouldn't she?"

But I think these shall/will should/would distinctions are all but dead in normal use.






.

[Sir Velo]

However, the writer (confusingly) probably means that Churchill was talking for the nation. Of course that's not "second person" in any grammatical sense, but it might just mean "at one remove".

Indeed. Had Churchill said "You shall never surrender", I doubt it would have gone down particularly well with the general public.

[mangerton]

Shouldn't you be queuing at the polling station?

(Perhaps you are, and you're tapping on yer handheld android!)

Been there, done that, but there were no tee shirts to be had. I'm now in for the evening, and a cold dreich one it is. That will not assist the turn out.

[visualnickmos]

It can do, as I posted above:

Exactly.

I, personally, would never say 'I should like to thank you',
It sounds awkward and wrong, and very old-fashioned and besides which, it is like saying 'I am supposed to thank you' (but I might not!)

[vinteuil]

... awkward and wrong, and very old-fashioned

... ah well, me all over, I s'pose

[french frank]

I, personally, would never say 'I should like to thank you'

It's an idiomatic phrase, so I don't think it should be formally parsed. I see it as (Jean probably knows the proper term - 'attenuating'?) a 'softening' expression, like saying 'I would [sic] like' rather than 'I want'.

[vinteuil]

... I should say so!


I should think everyone could agree with that description....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I should cocoa!

[Serial_Apologist]

I should cocoa!

More of an emollient than an attenuation, I'd have thought.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... but is that "I should have thought" or "I would have thought"?

[Serial_Apologist]

... but is that "I should have thought" or "I would have thought"?

I deliberately kept that ambiguous - so important in postmodern thinking, dear.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... but is that "I should have thought" or "I would have thought"?

I should have thought is was "I would have thought".