• @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      69 hours ago

      Am manager, hate should.

      Should presumes an ideal set of conditions with perfect context.

      Could is a much better term as it implicitly accepts real world conditions and a lack of total context by couching the affirmation as contingent upon only the discussion (and prior references) at hand.

      • Eager Eagle
        link
        English
        2
        edit-2
        3 hours ago

        Getting a bit in between the lines, “should” more often than not reads to me as “it’s expected to work and we’re working towards it”.

        While “could” sounds like a shrug: “it may work, but I/we have little to no control over it”.

      • mosiacmango
        link
        fedilink
        109 hours ago

        In my experience, people want “it will work.” They will not accept “it could work” at all.

        “It should work” is the perfect amount of hedge, even when you know “it will work,” because all of us have been burned by simple assumptions that were right 1000 times before and were somehow wrong this time.