Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 February 19

= February 19 =

I would have thought ...
"I would have thought that you would have done XYZ rather than ABC". And similar formulations.

The actual meaning comes through loud and clear as "I do think that you ought to have done XYZ rather than ABC". What's the purpose of beating around the bush verbally?

Normally, "I would have ..." means that, in some other circumstance, that's what I would have done, but in this case I'm doing something else. Except, in this particular construction that's exactly what they are doing, so the "would have" seems quite out of place. If you understand my meaning. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  03:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * There's an understood meaning of "if someone had asked me beforehand" attached to this formulation. --Khajidha (talk) 03:35, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I should have thought that was obvious. --Lambiam 10:50, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, that sense of "should". Down here, it virtually always means an expectation, not as categorical as "must" but on the way there. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In the UK, where beating around the bush is an essential social skill, using the past conditional like this makes it a suggested alternative to consider rather than a direct criticism. To my ear, "should have" sounds a little more assertive than "would have". Alansplodge (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * To make it passive-aggressive, use " One should have thought that ...". --Lambiam 08:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Jack, there's really no point feeling sorry now. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)