Forums › Ask ACCA Tutor Forums › Ask the Tutor ACCA AAA Exams › "Should not" vs "Shall not"
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by MikeLittle.
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- August 6, 2016 at 10:25 am #331688
Hello again Mr Mike
according to the code, auditor shall not provide IT design service for a listed company( of course the IT service is related to financial recording stuff)
based on my basic English understanding, “shall not” means no, you cannot, i cannot , and never do it
for “should not” , may be can, maybe not
This puzzled me though , in the past year exam answers, the scenario given was the same exactly i mentioned above, however the further comment given by the examination team was that “the auditor should not provide IT service………..”
i thought it must write “shall not” , could you explain this to me?
August 6, 2016 at 2:38 pm #331697You have to accept that, in the UK, as a nation we are unbelievably lazy in our use of language
by sheer coincidence I was talking about should, could and would with my brother-in-law just 2 days ago and we decided that we weren’t really sure about when these should (could? would?) be used
You may come across – as I frequently do – script written by English people where, instead of writing “I should have gone to the shops today to buy some milk”, it is becoming more and more common for them to write “”I should of gone to the shops today to buy some milk”
Can I explain the examination team’s further comment “the auditor should not provide IT service………..”?
Where, from a detached perspective, the comment is about something that has happened then I can see that “the auditor should not provide IT service………..” could validly be used even to the extent that the sentence could go further as in:
“the auditor should not provide IT service because the code states that “the auditor shall not provide an IT design service”
But that’s a tenuous argument … very flimsy
In summary, no, I can’t explain it
August 6, 2016 at 3:58 pm #331702i see…i will never understand UK english ..But uhm i know what to do in the exam…to be safe
August 6, 2016 at 5:49 pm #331729You should of known already!
:-)))
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