But don't you see I have grown up outside the pale of duty and 'oughts.'
There are no oughts in my life which I have gotten from my father.
He ought to have been inside at his business; but oughts went for little with Cyril.
You have a special apparatus within you for dealing with a universe where oughts are flagrantly disregarded.
Why, I towld him av he guv the boys a promise, he oughts never to go back from his word.
You must give three oughts to one or two pictures, two oughts to three or four, and one ought to eight or nine.
The three imperative "oughts" for the parent or teacher are herein suggested.
"something," Old English awiht "aught, anything, something," literally "e'er a whit," from Proto-Germanic *aiwi "ever" (from PIE *aiw- "vital force, life, long life, eternity;" see eon) + *wihti "thing, anything whatever" (see wight). In Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, aught and ought occur indiscriminately.
Old English ahte "owned, possessed," past tense of agan "to own, possess, owe" (see owe). As a past tense of owe, it shared in that word's evolution and meant at times in Middle English "possessed" and "under obligation to pay." It has been detached from owe since 17c., though he aught me ten pounds is recorded as active in East Anglian dialect from c.1825. As an auxiliary verb expressing duty or obligation (late 12c., the main modern use), it represents the past subjunctive.
