I never felt so knowledgeable in my time as an English teacher as when the topic of Modal Verbs came up, and come up it did, again, and again and again.
Should, would, could, ought to...Explaining the subtle differences took time, talking time, and contrary to the bedstead of TEFL theory, namely 'minimizing teacher talking time', talk I did.
Whenever I sit down to write something, I find my fingers drawn to these omnipresent words...
Why? We love to preach...you should,we could, they ought to
But more than that we love to berate ourselves...mmm, i should...I could, i shouldn't
Our words create our reality, ridiculous as that may seem, and these words delude us into thinking there is some prescribed form of 'right' behaviour. Moreover they disconnect us from a more actionable accessible reality.
Im endeavoring to strike these words my daily usage.....i will do, I am...small words, but words that empower...we have enough reasons to feel guilty (I am Irish, if we didn't invent guilt, we certainly perfected it) lets not add to our burden with with these deviously subtle nuisances
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