780: Supposed versus Suppose Jan 26, 2017

Spelling rules can be confusing and feel fairly arbitrary, but much like why any government has power, we are stuck with them so long as enough people agree to the status quo. In speech, the difference between 'suppose to' and 'supposed to' is, depending on accents, little to nonexistent; an omission of the D is generally made up for with the plosive sound of the T in 'to. Still, in formal settings, it is good to know that, 'suppose' is a verb, such as in, "You suppose that Word Facts is worth sharing" whereas "supposed" is a participle and functions like an adjective, usually as a predicate, as in "we are supposed to share these posts"; although there can be other, more nuanced functions, this is common, and often may be substituted with "should". Where this can be confusing is that, 'supposed' is also the perfect form of the verb, but this is the same form for most other English verbs in this tense, so most would know intuitively.
For other often confused words: click here