Teacher Discussion Forums

Do you use this form?

Spoken: Oughtn't we be going soon?
Written: Oughtn't we to be going soon?

If not, what would you generally use?
.........

Also, do you use this?

You didn't ought to do that.

Spoken: Oughtn't we be going soon?
Written: Oughtn't we to be going soon?

If anything the first form is more formal. We have discussed this before.

You didn't ought to do that.

This is an emerging form. Currently it is non-standard.

Andrew Patterson wrote:

Spoken: Oughtn't we be going soon?
Written: Oughtn't we to be going soon?

If anything the first form is more formal. We have discussed this before.

You didn't ought to do that.

This is an emerging form. Currently it is non-standard.

I know all that, Andrew, but I asked if you or any other posters here use any of those forms.

Andrew Patterson wrote:.

You didn't ought to do that.

This is an emerging form. Currently it is non-standard.

It is according to this:

(3) CAN OUGHT ACT AS A LEXICAL VERB?


The third dispute over the use of ought is that it has some


tendency to pattern as a lexical verb (e.g. They didn't ought to go),


which is an indicator of the marginal status of ought, like the other


marginal modal auxiliaries such as used (to) and have (to).


Greenbaum (1996: 155) notes that in non-standard dialects and

sometimes in informal Standard English, ought is used as a main


verb with the dummy operator do.

http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/10/1 ... gatives%22

I dont ever use ought, it is very informal and seems to be dying-- at least in American English. I dont know where Andrew is from, but I have never heard his sentance being used.

I dont ever use ought, it is very informal and seems to be dying-- at least in American English. I dont know where Andrew is from, but I have never heard his sentance being used.

"oughtn't we" gets 11,600 hits on Google, including American sites such as the Washington Post.

I have never heard of 'ought' as being informal before and have seen no evidence of declining usage. It seems to me you are just making things up.

Andrew Patterson wrote:

Spoken: Oughtn't we be going soon?
Written: Oughtn't we to be going soon?

If anything the first form is more formal. We have discussed this before.

You didn't ought to do that.

This is an emerging form. Currently it is non-standard.

An emerging form? Where? Used by whom? I would certainly never use such a form! And what does You didn't ought to do that mean anyway?

1) You didn't have to do that? (wasn't necessary)
2) You shouldn't have done that? (wasn't a good idea)
3) Or some other meaning which I fail to infer?

Remember the line from 1984 - "We didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em"?

Nonstandard certainly, but I doubt George Orwell made it up so he probably heard it somewhere, maybe when he was homeless in London. It means the same as "shouldn't have".

I've certainly heard it since but wouldn't go around teaching it.

Oceanbreeze you should get out more. I've heard "didn't ought to (have)" all my life. I couldn't say if it's getting more or less popular but it's been non-standard English in at least five parts of the UK for ages.

Elodde, go to any US newspaper site and stick "ought" in the search box. Looks healthy enough to me.

Oh Stephen, what would we do without your negative attitude?

Juan- Once again all over the world there are all sorts of Englishes. Where I am from --California-- we would not say it. Someone from the South might. As for the newspaper thing, I think we all know that newspapers are not grammatically perfect, I find errors in them all the time, so I wouldnt use being able to do searches in a newspaper as the ends all. Metal asked if we use it, I do not, perhaps you do where you are from. I would teach my students what it meant, in case they heard it, but would not have them use it- the same with shall.

OK guys, if we take language from a sociolingiustic point of view ANYTHING is possible. I've heard "I wouldn't of gone" a thousand times. But, is it possible to say this? NO! Is it standard English? NO!

Ocean- of course it is possible to say, because it is said and the meaning is understood. What is proper English and what is used and understood are two things.

Within our student's discourse communities they may have a need to know that. If you were teaching in Texas, I would definately suggest teaching "ought" and "oughtn't." Our job as English teachers is not only to teach the perfectly grammatical sentences, because outside the classroom that is not what they will hear. Just like when you write, when you teach you need to have audience awareness.

oceanbreeze wrote:OK guys, if we take language from a sociolingiustic point of view ANYTHING is possible. I've heard "I wouldn't of gone" a thousand times. But, is it possible to say this? NO! Is it standard English? NO!

This is an entirely different issue, as the sound of "have" in "wouldn't have" mimics the sound of "of". (That is, drop the "f" before consonant sounds, link with a /v/ before vowels.) That error is in my opinion a spelling error, not a grammatical error.

Loikeet you are right. I didn't actually say it myself but -- now that you mention it-- that is a dropped consonant.

Concur totally with Lorikeet - it's a homophone problem, pure and simple. An analogy would be using the wrong form of there/their/they're. It seems that when some people find that common use doesn't fit their views of correctness, they say "Oh well, real usage doesn't count because native speakers write could of". Strangely enough, they don't use that argument when real usage confims what they say.

Noone is saying that anything goes, but if a substantial number of language users across a community use and accept the form, then it shouldn't be written off. This goes for didn't ought, but not, I venture, could of.