GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Annie Subjunctive on August 07, 2005, 10:48:28 PM
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...if someone could tell me why that is constructed that way. What tense is "should consider?" Why would you say that if you already consider it?
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That sounds odd to me -- as though you meant to say "I would comsider it a great honour" but said it wrong.
Saying it like that makes me think "I should consider it a great honor, but I don't. Fooey on you. :P"
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Yea that sounds odd to me too. I don't think I've ever heard that construct before.
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I hear that construct all the time, but it always sounds wrong unless I mentally assume that they meant "would".
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I've heard it in the form of "You should consider doing x" or "I should consider doing x" but not with anything following it other than that.
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I've heard it quite often, but that's because I've watched A&E's Pride and Prejudice about 30,000 times.
It's either archaic or British.
edit: I have just edited the spelling in the thread title to reflect that distinction.
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Do you have any other examples of how it's been used in similar ways to that?
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It's either archaic or British.
Bingo! (Or, you know, both . . . ;) )
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I don't know why, but that spelling has been creeping into my written language more and more (honour, colour, armour, etc.).
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...if someone could tell me why that is constructed that way. What tense is "should consider?" Why would you say that if you already consider it?
It's the past tense indicative mood. Should has many different uses, and one of them is to soften direct statements.
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The "should" seems to just a hint of conditionality and also a hint of subtly aggressive advancement of the speaker's opinion. I think it's a great use of the English language.
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It allows people to be indirect and distant in an ultra-polite sort of way.
Reminds me of some of the sentance constructs used in various Asian languages to denote great respect. Nothing specific comes to mind, and I don't know for a fact that they do this, but it seems like I have heard a lot of that sort of showing-respect-by-being-amazingly-indirect-and-distant sort of thing.
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I should think it's a great use of the English language.
There, fixed that for ya. :P