Re: can-may

On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 09:55:04PM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> Oh really? I'm surprised. I apologise to anyone I offended! I just
> assumed that seeing as everyone always mentions that 'can' can also be
> used where 'may' is common, and esply from statements like Sally's
> starting with 'Hence the old schoolmarm response when one uses "can"
> when one should use "may" in polite
> circumstances ...', common in all discussions, that my use of 'can' for
> permission was the common.
I think both you and Barry may (:)) be overgeneralizing from your
respective environments.  My personal experience lies somewhere in
between what you each describe; certainly "can" for permission is
common, but so is correct use of "may", and as long as you're not
correcting someone else, use of "may" doesn't sound particularly snotty
or whatever.

IME, the prescriptive rules take root in different people to different
degrees. Personally, I seem to have been pretty thoroughly
indoctrinated, and sometimes have to give myself a mental kick to stop
myself from using circumlocutions to avoid dangling prepositions, etc.,
even in casual office banter.  But even within a given individual's
usage, the rules seem to form groups of greater or lesser applicability.
Some categories and examples for me:

Rule is followed...                     Example in my idiolect
at all times                            conjugate verbs properly
except in the most informal settings    avoid use of "ain't"
only in formal settings                 avoid dangling prepositions
completely ignored unless being graded  avoid splitting infinitives

Among the people I know it seems the "can/may" rule is higher up that list
than many others, so "proper" use of "may" is heard more often than
other examples of "proper" English even in casual speech.

-Marcos