As it Should Be

"There's a typo in this story," one of my students complained today.

"Show me," I asked him because I knew it was entirely possible. I had spent a tedious couple of hours over the weekend converting PDFs to text so that they would work with the read-aloud function of our learning management system. This particular student was someone I knew would benefit from both hearing and seeing the text of the story as he read.

He pointed to a word on the page and said, "I think this must be spelled wrong. I've never seen it before."

The word was 'ought', and I nodded at him. "I can see where you might not know that word; we don't really use it that often, but it means 'should'."

"I learned a new word today!" he marveled.

"It's a good one," I agreed. "You should know it."

"Do you mean I ought know it?" he laughed.

"Yes!" I answered. "We would say, 'You ought to know it.'"

"Well, now I do," he assured me, and went back to the story.