milky  +  270880 Fri, 22 Sep 06 04:48 PM If you wanted to express outside/external/societal obligation, below, which sentence in each pair would you choose? Pair 1.   a. My children must eat an apple after their meals. b. My children have to eat an apple after their meals.  …………  Pair 2.   a. My children must eat an apple after their meals. b. My children are having to eat an apple after their meals.   milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	Jrdavis  +  270892 Fri, 22 Sep 06 05:06 PM I don't see any difference between the choices in pair 1. in Pair 2, I don't understand why one would add "add the moment", unless you had in mind a temporary obligation. Sentence b seems odd, though I can't quite say why. In my own writing, I would not use any of your choices.  Instead I would say My children are required to eat an apple after their meals or My children are obligated to eat an apple after their meals or, if I wanted to be very specific about the source of the requirement, I would use active, not passive The dietary laws of my people require that my children eat an apple after their meal or The dietary laws of my people require my children to eat an apple after their meal Jrdavis Joined on Tue, Sep 19 2006 Toroto, Ontario, Canada New Member 26 Native speaker of American English, somewhat ruined by academia. Now trying to learn the Canadian variety. Difference Between

	milky  +  270899 Fri, 22 Sep 06 05:24 PM <My children are required to eat an apple after their meals or My children are obligated to eat an apple after their meals. Sounds rather formal. I'm talking about an everyday conversation. Do you use modal auxiliaries in your day-to-day interactions? milky Conversations, Auxiliaries, Modals, Modal Auxiliaries

	milky  +  270901 Fri, 22 Sep 06 05:26 PM <in Pair 2, I don't understand why one would add "add the moment", unless you had in mind a temporary obligation> Good question. I've edited it out. milky