modal verb – n. a verb (such as can, could, shall, should, ought to, will, or would) that is usually used with another verb to express ideas such as possibility, necessity, and permission.
These past tense modals are useful for expressing your present feelings about a past decision (or other action). Could have, would have, and should have are sometimes called “modals of lost opportunities.” They work like a grammatical time machine. The simple past just tells what happened. Past modals tell what could have, would have, and should have happened. These past modal verbs are all used hypothetically, to talk about things that really didn't happen in the past.
For me, this is a pet peeve. Seeing should of, would of, could of in print drives me up the wall.
Back in my school days, Grammar was a subject. Everyone learned parts of speech, sentence structure, verb tenses, punctuation, diagrammed sentences, and it built from elementary school through high school. As an English major in college, I took a Grammar class. Nowadays, Grammar is not taught as extensively as it was. So when people hear the contractions should've, would've, could've and don't understand - 've is a contraction of the helping verb "have," you get "of." And trying to explain this in a nutshell doesn't work because background knowledge isn't there.
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