In Modals^x, Conversations^x

Paco2004 wrote:Hello Goodman"Had better" is a quasi-modal synonymous to "should" and "ought to". They are all used to express some advices. (EX) You should stop smoking. (EX) You ought to stop smoking. (EX) You had better stop smoking.The difference is that "should" and "ought to"...

CalifJim wrote:it seems that a few American English speakers do not distinguish between those usesActually, the subjective/objective distinction is of extremely little importance to American speakers. Typically "must" is used as an epistemic modal almost exclusively in ordinary conversation,...

it seems that a few American English speakers do not distinguish between those uses Actually, the subjective/objective distinction is of extremely little importance to American speakers. Typically "must" is used as an epistemic modal almost exclusively in ordinary conversation, and...

A reasonably common remark, Teo. It means what information/conversation did he present/offer? It means roughly the same as What did he say? We use the phrase when we suspect that the third party wished to comment, and we would like to know what s/he said. (PS: have means possess; it is...

Summarising: Three ways of looking at it. Extracts from the Geoffrey Leech article, " />English Grammar in Conversation. View 1: Spoken English has no grammar at all: it is grammatically inchoate. (That view) ...does not need to be taken seriously, although it is surprisingly persistent in the...

Paco: By the way I have a feeling that English 'now' (in the linguistic sense, not in the physical sense) is not instantaneous, but it seems to occupy some span in the time that flows from the past to the future. Otherwise I cannot understand the usage of the present progressive tense. JTT: I...

Final observation: The recommendations above are based on American English, but I would not be surprised if they were valid for all other varieties of English as well. In everyday conversation in American English, the "M"-modals (may, might, must) are almost exclusively the ones used for logical...

Based on what I hear daily, I would like to make a recommendation or two. If you start with these first and master them, expanding out into the additional meanings will be less of a problem than if you try to learn all possible meanings at once, which can get somewhat confusing. 1a. Use "must"...

JTT: I'm back. As Jim mentioned in my absence, either would be okay. But what he didn't mention is that there are reasons we choose one or the other. Yoshi, the first thing you're going to have to re-learn is that the old "rule" you were taught was wrong, wrong, wrong. There are many old...

JTT: "The possibility started yesterday. It therefore started in the past." But it has not come to fruition. It can have no past tense because nothing has past, ie. nothing has finished. How curious. A possibility has no past? Maybe I misremembered the conversation with Casi: Casi: I hear you...