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Aught vs. Ought

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:19 am
by oursilverstrands
Jan, my computer accepts this:

Accepting the Christ-life is easy, living as a Christian aught is not.

But it does not accept this:

Accepting the Christ-life is easy, living as a Christian ought is not.

It insists on this:

Accepting the Christ-life is easy, living as a Christian ought to be is not.

Any reason, or is it just computer correctness gone wild?


Thanks,

Lillian

Re: Aught vs. Ought

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:35 am
by glorybee
Your computer is ridiculous!

"Aught" can mean 'anything' or 'zero' (!), but it isn't anywhere close in meaning to "ought," which means 'should."

And its suggestion of adding 'to be' to your second sentence is awkward at best. I could go along with just the addition of 'to' after 'ought,' but even that's not strictly necessary; your sentence is fine without it.''

This is why most computer suggestions should be examined carefully, and then (usually) discarded.