Comment by theasisa
2 days ago
> Probably someone who never confuses “empathy” and “sympathy” while also carefully distinguishing between “should” and “ought”.
What do you mean by this?
2 days ago
> Probably someone who never confuses “empathy” and “sympathy” while also carefully distinguishing between “should” and “ought”.
What do you mean by this?
I feel "ought" is stronger and is something that is expected of you, but English is not my native language.
"You should drink more water"
"You ought to help your sick mother"
I'm a native speaker and I agree. "Ought" can connote an obligation or responsibility of some sort. "Should" is used more often when the outcome is out of any control. It might only be the speaker's belief.
But there is significant overlap.
im not a native speaker and these always made perfect sense to me :(
That's when you turn to the RFC2119 all-caps requirement levels!
> SHOULD — This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course.
You'll also need RFC 6919[1] for "OUGHT TO":
> The phrase "OUGHT TO" conveys an optimistic assertion of an implementation behavior that is clearly morally right, and thus does not require substantiation.
And the up-threads gut feel that "ought to" is slightly stronger comes across there, I think: ought to conveys that moral stance, where as "should" is more "there's a decision here, possibly".
[1]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6919.html; n.b., this is an April 1st RFC. I like it, though, and it isn't uncommon to see a stray "ought to" lacking a citation in a non-April-1st RFC.
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What I find strange about RFC2119 is technically RFC8174 amends it, yet the amended text never seems to be used.
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You really OUGHT to.
SHALL vs SHOULD
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Not sure what's giving you a pause there?
It's going over my head, too. I don't understand what the implication of the sentence is in context.
Someone who is incredibly pedantic and also specific about their word use, who doesn't have a problem with four different descriptions because they all elide to the same thing. ie someone who should have more sympathy AND empathy even if they can disambiguate the terms (for their audience.)
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