Word Confusion: Aught versus Ought

Posted April 13, 2021 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions

It shall be aught if you don’t look this post over. Really, you ought to read all about this pair of heterographs (a subset of homophone). Although, I do have to confess that aught and ought do have a number of definitions in common…

Well, not to confuse you or anything, but aught and ought are fairly interchangeable…IF you’re writing a tale set in the historical past anyway.

Either aught or ought can be used for a pronoun and less commonly for the word nought. In fact, Garner, says that nought, which equaled a zero (0̸) back in the day, was mistaken as aught. Still, while aught is technically incorrect, it has been widely accepted to mean 0̸. So, yeah, interchangeable…

Playing off that misconception, aught is preferred when dealing with numbers (Garner).

Ought is, today, most commonly used with the prepositional to when it’s being used in the sense of an obligation, as in ought to. If you want to be negative, use ought not to.

Usage-wise, it would probably be best to use ought to express obligation, duty, or necessity; the desired or ideal; or, what is likely or probable.

Use should to express suitability or appropriateness — in particular, should not or shouldn’t should be used instead of ought not…

Another way to look at ought versus should is as a sense of formality. The former being more formal and the latter more casual. Of course if you want to give your character some, um, character, consider emphasizing those oughts — and the incorrect usage styles noted below, lol (Perlman).

Correct Negative Usage	Incorrect Usage
We ought not to have ordered so much food.	We don’t ought to have ordered so much food.
You oughtn’t to have said that about his mother.	You didn’t ought to have said that about his mother.
Better Negative Usage	Not So Great
You shouldn’t speak to your father like that.	You oughtn’t to speak to your father like that.
Correct Usage as a Question	Incorrect Usage
Ought she to call the police?	Does she ought to call the police?
Ought we to be more worried about the environment?	Do we ought to be more worried about the environment?

Ought To

Word Confusions…

…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.

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Aught	Ought
Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com; Definitions.net: aught; Dictionary.com: aught, ought; The Free Dictionary: aught; Lexico.com: aught; Wordnik.com: aught
Data is Collected on Everything We Do is Rhododendrites‘s own work and is under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — We could re-word this title as Data is Collected on Aught We Do.	You Ought to Be Ashamed of Yourself, 1901, by William Wallace Denslow, inspired by L. Frank Baum, and courtesy of the New York Public Library, which is in the public domain, via Picryl.
Part of Grammar:
Adverb ¹; Noun ¹, ²; Pronoun ³ Plural for the noun: aughts A less common word for nought Variant pronoun: ought	Noun ¹, ²; Pronoun ³; Verb, modal ⁴ Plural for the noun: oughts Third person present verb: ought * Past tense or past participle: ought * Gerund or present participle: ought * * As a modal verb, ought does not change form. Negative form: ought not to, oughtn’t to A less common word for nought Variant pronoun: aught
Adverb: [Archaic] In/to any degree At all In any respect Noun: [Archaic] The digit 0̸ ¹ [Informal; primarily British] Zero Cipher, cypher Nil, nothing, null, nada, naught [Slang] Nix, zilch [Slang] Goose egg [Slang] Zip, zippo [British] All Anything whatever Any part [US the aughts; Australia, British, New Zealand noughties] The decade from 2000 to 2009 ² Pronoun: [Archaic; dialectal] Anything at all Everything	Noun: [Archaic] The digit 0̸ ¹ [Informal; primarily British] Zero Cipher, cypher Nil, nothing, null, nada, naught [Slang] Nix, zilch [Slang] Goose egg [Slang] Zip, zippo Nonentity Nothing [the aughts] The decade from 2000 to 2009 ² Duty or obligation Pronoun: [Archaic; dialectal] Anything at all Everything Verb, modal: [Third singular present and past ought; with infinitive] Used to indicate duty or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions Used to indicate a desirable or expected state Used to give or ask for advice Used to indicate something that is probable
Examples:
Adverb: “Is there aught,” she panted, “aught that could come between your soul and mine?” Drunken with the wine of success deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught but its own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and mad with pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. ‘Cause his mum didn’t have no money to dress him in aught but a suit of rags, stitched up from scraps of handmedowns and castoffs what had been worn to nothing and chucked away. Far be it from me to gainsay thee in aught, for I am indebted to thee for many favors and bounties and much kindness. Noun: He received aught votes. Their DVD was released in the early aughts. Back in the early aughts, he worked as a marketing specialist. Pronoun: Do know you aught of this fellow, young sir? In his report of the battle, Cromwell wrote, “it is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy”. For aught we know. Neither of his parents had aught but praise for him.	Noun: “Why, I towld him av he guv the boys a promise, he oughts never to go back from his word.” – Anthony Trollope, The MacDermots of Ballycloran. “But don’t you see I have grown up outside the pale of duty and ‘oughts’.” – Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Wives and Daughters. “There are no oughts in my life which I have gotten from my father.” – Stephen Wise, Child versus Parent. Pronoun: Do know you ought of this fellow, young sir? For ought we know. Neither of his parents had ought but praise for him. Verb, modal: They ought to respect the law. It ought not to be allowed. He ought to be able to take the initiative. You ought to go. Five minutes ought to be enough time.
History of the Word:
Early 19th century, probably a variant of naught. Mid-19th century, perhaps from an ought, by wrong division of a nought. Old English āht, āwiht, ōwiht, equivalent to ā, ō (ever) + wiht (thing). Middle English aught, ought.	Mid-19th century, perhaps from an ought, by wrong division of a nought. Mid-19th century, perhaps from an ought, by wrong division of a nought Old English āht, āwiht, ōwiht, equivalent to ā, ō (ever) + wiht (thing). Middle English aught, ought. Old English āhte, past tense of āgan meaning owe.

C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan…which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them…and we’ll all benefit!

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Resources for Aught versus Ought

Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Modern American Usage. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2009.

“Ought To.” Cambridge Dictionary. n.d. Web. 2 April 2021. <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/ought-to>.

“Ought vs Aught.” Homophones. Grammarist. n.d. Web. 2 April 2021. <https://grammarist.com/homophones/ought-vs-aught/>.

Perlman, Merrill. “Your Head Will Spin: Uses of naught, aught, and ought.” Columbia Journalism Review. 28 July 2014. Web. 2 April 2021. <https://archives.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_072814.php>.