Re: can-may
| From: | Sally Caves <scaves@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, December 27, 2004, 14:14 |
|---|
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan McLeay" <conlang@...>
> I'm quite surprised at the amount of people who immediately went off
> and retold the prescriptivist rule (and then provided an exception); I
> thought here prescriptivism was generally frowned upon...
It's not entirely prescriptivism, Tristan. Quite a number of us still use
"may" in the way I described. And just because a word like "may" has a
"politeness" factor doesn't make it prescriptive. Is it prescriptive to use
the Sie or the vous form in German and French language when you address
strangers instead of the du or the tu form? These rules are probably more
insisted upon than the can/may forms in English, but I still maintain that
you are using prescriptivism incorrectly here when CUSTOM, not a made-up
rule, still insists on these distinctions in polite discourse.
Besides, # 1 ASKED for the distinction. I thought it appropriate to show
its origins in Old English. I was describing a development. Not a
prescription.
>> can/may someone help me?
>
> Definitely not may. (But 'could' would also be acceptable there.)
Now isn't THAT a prescription? Where do you draw the line, Tristan?
Sally
Replies