Re: can-may

Sally Caves scripsit:

> Both Barry and I came up with the identical sarcastic response that is
> legion in America.  "Can I have some butter?"  "I don't know, can you"?
> It's a joke!  But it's deeply engrained in polite America, and, I gather,
> polite England, and polite Canada.  And probably polite Australia.  I would
> never, addressing my hostess at a formal dinner, say "Can I have some more
> coffee?" any more than I would use the "tu" form with someone I just met in
> Geneva.
In one of Isaac Asimov's Black Widowers stories, Emmanuel Rubin (modeled
on Lester Del Rey) claims that while this may be true in someone's home,
the prescriptively correct form in a restaurant is "Can I?", because
in a restaurant (where the Black Widowers meet) the question you want
answered is not permission (you *may* have anything you can pay for)
but possibility (has the coffee run out?)

Coffee isn't a good example for this, to be sure.  "Can I have some
venison?"  would be more like it.

--
Principles.  You can't say A is         John Cowan <jcowan@...>
made of B or vice versa.  All mass      http://www.reutershealth.com
is interaction.  --Richard Feynman      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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