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I use the term "should probably" very, very frequently in order to say "to the best of my knowledge up to this point, this is the correct way to do X, but your input is still valuable"
I'm currently writing out some spec sheets, and it get's very tiresome using "should probably" over and over again.
Is there a single word which expresses the concept of "you should probably do this"?
If not, is there a word which is stronger than "could" and weaker than "should?"
ideally - in relation to an exemplar.
"The function ideally has two arguments."
"Ideally, this component..."
I should also note that despite the definition, invoking ideally conversationally is going to rest on the authority of the speaker, not necessarily imply that a proposed solution is a universal ideal. It is one of those words like literally that doesn't have to be taken entirely literally.
I suggest using Ought to
used to express something that you expect will happen:
- He ought to be home by seven o'clock.
- They ought to have arrived at lunchtime but the flight was delayed.
- If you show the receipt, there ought not to be any difficulty getting your money back
Used to indicate something that is probable.
- ‘five minutes ought to be enough time’
Should and Ought to are generally interchangeable nowadays, but should has more of a subjective meaning, and ought to is more objective according to some scholars.
See quote on p12 of on the pragmatics of modal verbs by I Depraetere - 2017
The distinction between 'objective modality' and 'subjective modality' is another opposition that is very much in the foreground in discussions of the meaning of modal verbs. For instance, should has been argued by some to be somewhat more subjective than ought to (Declerck 1991, Larreya & Rivière 2005: 126)
should is much more common statistically. There are over 2 million instances of should on the Oxford English Corpus, compared with around 71,000 occurrences of ought. In particular, should is much more frequent in questions or negative constructions than ought. Should is the least forceful of the trio [they included must]: it’s mostly used to make suggestions and more tentative predictions.
The infographic below provides more detail in terms of the relative strengths of each "modal verb"
To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a single word in English which expresses the concept of "you should probably do this"
I thought I should-prob share the notion of using "should-prob." It's obviously only good for non-formal situations, but it's better than nothing.
To elaborate, there seems to be a very wide band between "should" and "can" where a person has an educated opinion, but acknowledges it as opinion (and therefor fallible).
Telling a person what they should do gives the impression that there is a right and wrong, and that you know which is which. Telling a person what they can do implies there is no right and wrong, and you don't have an opinion.
Between these two can be imagined a situation where there is a right and wrong and you have an opinion but do not know what to do. A suggestion if you will.
What's strange is that of these three scenarios, the missing one seems the most common. Anyone who knows what's right and wrong is probably misguided, and notion of having no opinion on a subject is probably a lie.
Anyways, for now I'm using should-prob until something better comes up.
