From the room, last lesson
Six sentences taken down during the retrospectives. Five have something a reader could point at. One does not.
Six sentences. One problem each. The note says what was meant.
1. I should of asked for half the money up front.
2. They must had known the account was gone.
3. I should have went back to them in the March.
4. He must have not seen the second email.
5. You didn’t need to send it twice. — he sent it twice and the second one was unnecessary
6. You should have flagged it in the January. — said to a colleague, meant as a comment on the process
The finding
Four you can be corrected on, and one you cannot
The form errors in this area are cheap. Should of, must had, should have went, must have not known — every one of them is visible on a page, every one of them gets a red line under it eventually, and every one of them can be fixed in an afternoon. They are worth an afternoon, and that is roughly what the rest of this lesson is.
The fifth is different, and it is the reason the unit exists. You should have flagged it in the January has nothing wrong with it. It is well formed, correctly spelled, appropriate in register, and it hands somebody a grade. If you meant a comment on the process, the sentence you produced is not the sentence you meant — and no reader will ever tell you, because there is nothing to point at and because pointing at it would mean commenting on your manners rather than your English.
So this one behaves like Unit 30’s: correct, unremarkable from the inside, invisible from the outside, and therefore permanent unless you build the habit yourself. The habit is the test from Lesson 4 — process, document, unasked question — and the frames it hands you.
There is also an audible half, and it is quick. In speech the two systems sit differently. A deduction keeps its stress on the participle: she must have LEFT. A verdict tends to move it onto the modal: you SHOULD have told me. Which means a criticism you did not intend can be created by stress alone, on a sentence whose words were fine.
And have, throughout, reduces to almost nothing. Should’ve, must’ve, couldn’t’ve. A fully pronounced, stressed have is a contradiction — I should HAVE gone answers somebody who has just said you should not have — so producing it by default makes every reflection sound like an argument.
Three questions.
1. Why will nobody correct the fifth error?
2. Where does the stress fall in a deduction, and where in a verdict?
3. What does a fully stressed have signal?
Five errors, and two places the stress can go
What goes wrong, and who notices
| Error | Example | Repair, and why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · of for have | I should have asked. An accurate transcription of /əv/ and not a word. Invisible in speech, obvious on a page. | |
| 2 · An inflected auxiliary | They must have known. The auxiliary never changes, whatever the modal and whatever the subject. | |
| 3 · The wrong verb form | gone · forgotten. A past participle, always — not a past simple and not a bare infinitive. | |
| 4 · Negating with not | He can’t have known. English negates a deduction by moving to the other end of the scale, not by adding not. | |
| 5 · A verdict where an observation was meant | You should have flagged it in the January. | Nothing to repair grammatically. Run the test — process, document, unasked question — and use a frame if it comes back yes. |
And the pair that trips almost everybody. She needn’t have brought her passport means she brought it and it was unnecessary. She didn’t need to bring her passport means it was unnecessary, and does not tell you whether she brought it. Two different claims about the world, and the second is not a softer version of the first.
Out loud, in ninety seconds.
1 · have reduces to /əv/ and contracts: should’ve · must’ve · might’ve · couldn’t’ve. Say the participle at full length and let the auxiliary disappear.
2 · Deduction keeps the stress on the participle: she must have LEFT.
3 · A verdict moves it onto the modal: you SHOULD have told me. Say a neutral sentence that way and you have produced a criticism without changing a word.
Say all three aloud twice. It is the fastest pragmatic repair in the whole unit.
Use the word in capitals to form a word that fits the gap. All eight belong to the vocabulary of professional reflection.
- The role offered no real of any kind. PROGRESS
- She was widely praised for her during the crisis. JUDGE
- The company handled the redundancies and knows it. COMPETENT
- He has a long-standing reputation for . RELY
- The decision was taken without any at all. CONSULT
- The outcome was deeply for everybody involved. SATISFY
- He is one of the most managers I have worked for. THOUGHT
- The team suffered from a complete lack of for eight months. DIRECT
Four questions.
1. What follows the modal, always?
2. She needn’t have brought it tells you…
3. Where is the stress in a deduction?
4. Your sentence is grammatically perfect and hands out a grade you did not mean. What do you do?
A review that went badly
Eight gaps. Every option is a real English form. Choose the one that says what the writer means.
The review lasted eleven minutes and I have thought about it for three years. She opened by saying that I raised the resourcing problem in the spring, which was true, and which arrived as a verdict rather than as information. I anything at the time and I did not; I sat there and agreed with her.What I have worked out since is that she known about the resourcing before I did — the budget had been signed off in the February and she signed it. So the sentence she gave me a question about a process she owned, and it came out as a grade on me. I do not think that was deliberate: she been trying to make me feel small, because she spent the rest of the year putting me forward for things.I thought about it for three years, obviously, and I have. What is one line in the review form asking whose decision each item was. Which is why, when I run reviews now, I that line in — and it is either a small professional improvement or a very long grudge with a template attached.
Eight sentences. Seven need work; one is correct as written.
1. You should of said something at the time.
2. She must had seen the message before the meeting.
3. I could have went, and I chose not to.
4. They must have not received it.
5. He didn’t need to apologise twice. — he apologised twice and neither was necessary
6. You should have chased the invoice in July. — meant as a comment on the process, to a colleague
7. The parcel should have arrived by now. — correct as written
8. It would have helped if you would have told me.
Read it back in a flat voice
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 10 minutes
Five sentences each about something that went wrong at work or on a course, written fast and not edited — then read back to you by somebody else.
Hear your own sentences arrive the way they arrive for everybody else.
- 3 minutes: write five sentences about the situation. Do not think about the unit while you write them; that is the point.
- Swap. Your partner reads each one aloud twice — once with the stress on the participle, once with it on the modal — and after each pair says who the sentence grades.
- For every sentence that graded somebody: run the test aloud. Process, document, unasked question? Then say the replacement, or keep the verdict and say why it is earned.
- Finish by reading your five repaired sentences aloud with the auxiliary contracted: should’ve · must’ve · couldn’t’ve.
The two readings are the whole exercise. Most people cannot hear the verdict in their own sentence and can hear it instantly in somebody else’s, which is why the sentence has to be read back by another mouth. Hearing the modal-stressed version of something you wrote as a neutral observation is uncomfortable and it is the thing that actually changes what you write next.
What it sounded like from outside
Two questions.
1. How did your sentences sound in somebody else’s mouth?
2. What did moving the stress onto the modal do?
Four cheap, one expensive
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. Which of the five errors will nobody ever correct for you?
2. How is a deduction negated?
Next. Three hundred and forty words of career retrospective — written, where the grades sit on the page for as long as anybody keeps the file.