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I've taken to checking the Online Etymology Dictionary when these questions come up (not having the OED). "Should" apparently comes from a word that looks like "scold," but isn't.
Be careful with the Online Etymology Dictionary. The sources that Douglas Harper quotes liberally from vary from highly reliable to highly unreliable and because he does not quote his sources in each entry (as he most definitely should) it's impossible to trust anything there. Still, as you say, perhaps better than nothing at all if you do not have access to the Oxford English Dictionary.
I can get the Oxford English Dictionary online, but it does not help much in this case; it does not have an etymology!
Here are all of the quotations:
1604 SHAKES. Ham. IV. vii. 123 (Qo. 2) And then this should is like a spend thrifts sigh, That hurts by easing. 1854 EMERSON Lett. & Soc. Aims Wks. (Bohn) III. 151 All writings must be in a degree exoteric, written to a human should or would, instead of to the fatal is.
Emmett
Grant Barrett said:
Be careful with the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Point taken. OK, how about Merriam-Webster? "Etymology: Middle English sholde, from Old English sceolde owed, was obliged to, ought to"
MW is good. I find the American Heritage Dictionary etymologies to be a bit more thorough, though.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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