# I pit people who have to constantly correct your grammar **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 29, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372 "2007-08-29T15:55:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/101 "2007-08-30T14:25:59Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] Sure it does. It’s like, “He could be fatter, but then he’d need his own zipcode,” only the second half has been worn off with overuse. [/QUOTE] Which would be great if it was ever used that way, which I don’t believe it was. People used to say, “couldn’t care less.” But they are lazy and shortened it. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/102 "2007-08-30T14:32:16Z")
Obvious misstatement in my last post: “Can” means “to be able to.” “May” means “to have permission to.” (Missed the edit window.) ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/103 "2007-08-30T14:52:54Z")
The tangled web of lies extends further than merely Can’s sordid ambiguity, however. That deceptive May, all prim innocence on the outside, has some skeletons in her own closet as well. To wit: “He may do that.” Has permission been given, or is the speaker stating a potential future action? _What a twist!_ There, in the shadows, lurks the true victim of this mess; Might! May, that trollop, accused Can of stealing her spotlight while simultaneously kicking Might out of the way and taking his place in the language! Can this be resolved? Might this be resolved? _May this be resolved?_ Tune in tomorrow, same Ambigutime, same Ambiguchannel. Why, yes, I am avoiding work. Why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/104 "2007-08-30T17:34:25Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] “If blah blah blah”. I have repeatedly said that I would not correct any adult on any grammar problem because it’s rude. So you can theorize your “if/then hypotheses” to your heart’s content, but I don’t bother to address responses based on things I never said. [/QUOTE] I’m just saying, inaccurate information is inaccurate, whether you give it to an adult, a child, or nobody at all. > [@](#): > > First, pointing out that it was a crappy analogy did not really call for futher explanation of the analogy. I never said I didn’t understand it; I said it was a crappy analogy, a judgment you don’t argue with. Ok, sorry. Although I thought you might care to know what my intent with mentioning it was nonetheless. > [@](#): > > Second, “can/may” IS a distinction worth preserving to some people – not sure if that constitutes a “big deal” or not. You have entirely failed to show that those people are wrong to preserve that distinction and to raise their children to do the same. You would like to phrase this in terms of whether it is widely understood – I never said it wasn’t – or should be widely corrected among adults or strangers – I never said it should – but you fail entirely to rebut MY point, which is that since choosing to distinguish between “can” and “may” is a preference – as are almost all language choices – you are hardly in a position to say that I or my mother or _anyone_ preserving the distinction in non-nitpicking, non-correcting way, am/is “wrong” or “faulty” or “irrational” to do so. Honestly, this isn’t that hard. It’s as wrong and irrational as trying to maintain a “will”/“shall” distinction in modern American English; just about nobody really follows it, not even most of the people who might claim they do (sure, they’ll occasionally consciously remember the adopted rule, from time to time, but most of the time, most people when naturally speaking will speak the way most people naturally speak (see [Themenin’s post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8931687&postcount=96))), and a few individuals’ idiosyncratic attempts at redefinition mean diddly-squat without broader support in their speech community. > [@](#): > > First of all, I never advocated for “nitpickery.” Again, who exactly are you responding to? My mention of “can vs. may nitpickery” which you are responding to was made in defense of my mention of “irrational hangups”, which, if you’ll check, was in reference to “schoolmarmish lectures”. Presumably, they are an example of nitpickery. > [@](#): > > Second, here are rational reasons to choose to maintain the distinction: > > 1. It is a useful distinction. “Can” means “to be able to.” “May” means “to be able to.” Without the distinction, precision is lost in some communications. For example: _She can bake a cake._ Does that mean she is able to, or she has permission to? I don’t know. Heaven forbid the occasional contrived ambiguity, easily resolved in any actual conversation where it would occur. But even adopting your can vs. may distinction, nothing is essentially fixed. I can still say “She may bake a cake”. Does that mean she has permission to or that the possibility exists that she will? ( **Bosstone** , of course, made this point immediately above.) > [@](#): > > 1. “Can” and “may” retain their different meanings in some contexts (technical and legal writing, to name two). In fields were careful writing is at a premium and precision in terms is crucial, the mushiness of conflating two different terms is rarely allowed. In these fields, it is simply inaccurate to say that “can” and “may” mean the same thing, because they simply don’t. Anyone attempting to use “can” for “may” (or vice versa) will quickly be corrected. And this happens a hell of a lot more often than in one case out of a hundred. You apparently would argue that people have some obligation to preserve the distinction professionally while dispensing of it in their own non-professional speech – as if that’s somehow easier or more rational than just using the terms with precision all the time. People pull off separation of professional jargon and linguistic standards from non-professional speech all the time. I know this because technical writers and lawyers rarely sound in conversation like technical manuals or legal papers. > [@](#): > > And here’s one irrational one: To many people who continue to believe that “can” and “may” mean different things, and should be used accordingly, misusing one for the other sounds uneducated. Well, that would be an inaccurate impression they’ve trained themselves to receive. But, I doubt they actually notice it, most of the time. It’s simply too common, in educated speech as much as anywhere else, for them to be constantly getting vibes of uneducation off of it. No, they probably notice it one time out of fifty and don’t realize all the times it slipped by undetected. > [@](#): > > I never once said anything about “preventing” people other than your own children from doing anything, so feel free to have this argument with whomever _did_ say this. Well, even preventing your own children from doing it is utterly pointless. Of course, one is free to engage in whatever silliness they want with their own children; there’s nothing morally wrong with trying to instill a distinction nobody else follows, but it’s just as pointless as trying to get your child to draw a distinction between “funny” for “odd” and “humorous” for “jocular”. Like I said before, it’s worth nothing if almost nobody else in their speech community does so, and it won’t really take, besides. But feel free to try. (I think all this mention of parenting makes the discussion more emotionally charged than it should be) ---
**Author:** ![MovingTarget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@MovingTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovingTarget)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/105 "2007-08-30T17:40:45Z")
Yes, yes it does. Can we just leave parenting out of this. this pit is solely against people who correct other “adult” peoples grammar during casual conversation, or on message boards, such as this one. Please, carry on now. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/106 "2007-08-30T17:50:17Z")
Of course, **Jodi** says she never corrects other adults’ grammar. Which is good, of course. But she still seems to think they are engaging in “misuse”, failing to observe proper or useful distinctions, etc. She just mostly keeps quiet about it. That’s commendable, but I think there’s room in this thread for some fighting of the linguistic ignorance, even if it is silent and harmless. I wish the discussion didn’t come off as personal, that we could have it dryly and academically, and I apologize for my failings in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/107 "2007-08-30T17:54:55Z")
**Jodi** , I think one of the reasons you two feel to be talking past each other is that you said: “Once again, your kids will be victims to any number of “school marmish” lectures, many of them – including this one – defensible.” To which **Indistinguishable** said: “I suppose we may agree on everything except the defensibility of inaccurate schoolmarmish lectures” your response: “A) There is nothing “inaccurate” about drawing a distinction between “can” and “may”.” Now, see how he thought you might have been talking about correcting adults? Because the phrase “including this one” seems to indicate that you are now correcting an adult and that is defensible. We, of course, now know that you don’t correct adults. Another misunderstanding is that neither myself nor **Indistinguishable** (I assume) ever meant to imply that you should change how you talk. In that case, we would be guilty of the sin (prescriptivism) that we are decrying. I really am trying to resolve things, not make them more confusing, I swear. Must be penance for starting my participation in this thread so snarkily ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/108 "2007-08-30T21:05:19Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Irony noted. [/QUOTE] I don’t note the irony, Indistinguishable. I think that comment was odd, if fact. You were referring to people who go around in everyday life, correcting grammar wherever they see it being abused! Plynck thinks that is the same as chiming in on a message board, in the pit, on topic, with your opinion? Odd. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/109 "2007-08-30T21:05:39Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] I’m just saying, inaccurate information is inaccurate, whether you give it to an adult, a child, or nobody at all. [/quote] I’m not sure how many different ways I can say this: _Matters of opinion are not subject to judgments of accuracy._ There is nothing “inaccurate” about using “can/may” precisely and maitaining the distinction between the two. That is not wrong, incorrect, false, or any other synonym you might choose for “inaccurate.” So – once again – unless you can show that maintaining the “can/may” distinction is _wrong_ – and if so, let’s see some proof, and “lots of people do it” isn’t proof – you can stop presenting YOUR opinion as the only correct one, when it isn’t. > [@](#): > > It’s as wrong and irrational as trying to maintain a “will”/“shall” distinction in modern American English . . . We’re talking about “may/can” not “will/shall.” And you keep saying and saying and saying that it’s “wrong” and “irrational,” but you have absolutely no proof for that, it’s all just your O, which is worth about as much as a fart in the wind to a person who disagrees with you. > [@](#): > > My mention of “can vs. may nitpickery” which you are responding to was made in defense of my mention of “irrational hangups”, which, if you’ll check, was in reference to “schoolmarmish lectures”. Presumably, they are an example of nitpickery. This is an excellent example of how you are basically having a conversation with yourself – YOU use “nitpickery” to respond to “irrational hangups” – YOUR term – in reference to “schoolmarmish lectures” – YOUR term again. None of it responds to anything I said. So shall I just leave you alone to argue with yourself? > [@](#): > > I don’t know. Heaven forbid the occasional contrived ambiguity, easily resolved in any actual conversation where it would occur. But even adopting your can vs. may distinction, nothing is essentially fixed. I can still say “She may bake a cake”. Does that mean she has permission to or that the possibility exists that she will? ( **Bosstone** , of course, made this point immediately above.) The fact that further ambiguity may exist is not actually an argument for imprecision. We make it as precise as we can; we don’t say “the hell with it” if we can’t make it perfectly precise in every respect in every context. Did you have a response that actually answered my assertion that the “may/can” distinction has utility and therefore is not irrational? > [@](#): > > People pull off separation of professional jargon and linguistic standards from non-professional speech all the time. I know this because technical writers and lawyers rarely sound in conversation like technical manuals or legal papers. The fact that people are sometimes required to segregate technical speech from personal speech is not actually an argument for unnecessarily making such chasms wider. Again, I was pointing out that distinguishing between “may” and “can” is not just useful but required in many professions and therefore is not irrational. Did you have a response to that? > [@](#): > > Well, that would be an inaccurate impression they’ve trained themselves to receive. But, I doubt they actually notice it, most of the time. It’s simply too common, in educated speech as much as anywhere else, for them to be constantly getting vibes of uneducation off of it. No, they probably notice it one time out of fifty and don’t realize all the times it slipped by undetected. Who are “they” and on what basis do you assert what “they” notice, and how frequently? On what basis do you state that this is “an inaccurate impression they’ve trained themselves to receive”? You have quite a few bald assertions, but I see very little to back it up. > [@](#): > > Well, even preventing your own children from doing it is utterly pointless. Says you. I’ve already listed reasons to maintain the distinction. You haven’t actually answered them. And I think training your kids to understand the difference between “funny” and “odd” is actually a great example; in my world, those words are rarely synonyms, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t join you in raising kids who cannot appreciate nuance of meaning because they’ve never been taught that such a thing exists. > [@](#): > > (I think all this mention of parenting makes the discussion more emotionally charged than it should be) Not for me, it doesn’t. I don’t have kids. What exasperates me is the fact that speech choice is so obviously a matter of STYLE, of personal preference, and therefore obviously of opinion, yet you insist on presenting your opinion as “correct” and others’ as “inaccurate”. I’m bothered when people can’t distinguish between opinion and fact, though, hell, for all I know that’s another of those “irrational” distinctions you’ve decided to dispense with. And there is quite literally no way you could claim your opinion is correct and mine is “linguistic ignorance” in a way that I would not personalize. I enjoy being called ignorant about as much as the average person, which is to say not at all. So here’s the deal: You come up with some proof that maintaining the distinction between “may” and “can” is not just old-fashioned, but is in fact objectively incorrect and/or irrational, or I will assume that the difference between “opinion” and “fact” is one you are simply too ignorant to grasp. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/110 "2007-08-30T21:18:25Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] **Jodi** , I think one of the reasons you two feel to be talking past each other is that you said: “Once again, your kids will be victims to any number of “school marmish” lectures, many of them – including this one – defensible.” [/quote] . . . . Clearly talking about kids . . . > [@](#): > > To which **Indistinguishable** said: > > “I suppose we may agree on everything except the defensibility of inaccurate schoolmarmish lectures” . . . . . . . . Not limiting his response to the set I was clearly talking about (kids) and further adding the contention that a “schoolmarmish lecture” in this subject is perforce “irrational.” > [@](#): > > your response: > > “A) There is nothing “inaccurate” about drawing a distinction between “can” and “may”.” > > Now, see how he thought you might have been talking about correcting adults? No. I fail to see how it could possibly be read that way when what I said is “ **Your kids will be victims to any number of “school marmish” lectures** , many of them – including this one – defensible.” How is it reasonable to infer I am here talking about adults, when I clearly said kids, and not just “kids” generally, but “your [own] kids”? > [@](#): > > We, of course, now know that you don’t correct adults. And why didn’t you know that at Post 80, where I said “But I am no fan of correcting other adults’ language. It’s six kinds of rude”? > [@](#): > > Another misunderstanding is that neither myself nor **Indistinguishable** (I assume) ever meant to imply that you should change how you talk. In that case, we would be guilty of the sin (prescriptivism) that we are decrying. No, he or she just wants to tell me I’m incorrect, irrational, and ignorant to speak as I do. > [@](#): > > I really am trying to resolve things, not make them more confusing, I swear. Must be penance for starting my participation in this thread so snarkily I appreciate that. And I have no quarrel with you. 🙂 But I _am_ irritated in every subject – not just grammar – when people try to beat me over the head with their opinion, dressing it up as if it were fact. I _offered_ to agree to disagree, assuming s/he would agree that (a) kids are lectured by their parents on lots of things, but (b) correcting other adults is rude – and please tell me what is objectionable about either of those “conditions.” But hell no; s/he’d rather continue to insist that s/he is correct and anyone disagreeing with him/her is wrong. So let’s see the proof of that. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/111 "2007-08-30T22:58:46Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] So people speak in an overwhelmingly common and ordinary way, the manner they absorbed, as with pretty much all spoken language, from the speech of those in the community around them, a manner which is perfectly clear and understandable, and you intentionally choose to be rudely mocking and disruptive in response? [/QUOTE] No. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/112 "2007-08-30T23:15:26Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] No. [/QUOTE] Umgawa. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/113 "2007-08-30T23:57:54Z")
Then, **Jodi** , what was the antecedent to “this one” in post 86? Doesn’t that refer to the school marmish lecture you are presumably giving to **Indistinguishable** , who is presumably not a kid? I’m just saying that’s how I read it, and I was trying to show there was an honest misunderstanding, at least in that point, at least for me. I thought it odd at the time, given your post #80, but there you go, a misunderstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/114 "2007-08-31T00:01:41Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] I’m not sure how many different ways I can say this: _Matters of opinion are not subject to judgments of accuracy._ There is nothing “inaccurate” about using “can/may” precisely and maitaining the distinction between the two. That is not wrong, incorrect, false, or any other synonym you might choose for “inaccurate.” So – once again – unless you can show that maintaining the “can/may” distinction is _wrong_ – and if so, let’s see some proof, and “lots of people do it” isn’t proof – you can stop presenting YOUR opinion as the only correct one, when it isn’t. [/QUOTE] Let me back off of and apologize for my previous use of loaded terminology and be more precise about what I’m saying, since, as **Jamaika a jamaikaiaké** notes, I have no desire for you to change your natural way of speaking or contempt for whatever that natural way is. I really do want to take the animosity down a notch. My position is that idiosyncratically holding a “can”/“may” distinction is like idiosyncratically holding a “funny”(meaning odd)/“jocular”(meaning humorous). If that’s how your natural speech is, it’s a bit odd that it should be so at odds with more popular convention, but there’s nothing ethically/morally/factually/whateverly wrong with it. It’s certainly odd, though (unless, of course, a “can”/“may” distinction is actually the norm in your particular speech community). People who don’t hold to this odd deviation from the norm are not being sloppy in ignoring it; it’s no more a rule that has any relevance to their lives than the made-up one distinguishing “funny” from “jocular”. It would be factually incorrect to claim that such a deviation from the norm was, in fact, the accurate definition for everybody, or something like that, but as long as one steers clear of that, one isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s just an odd idiosyncracy. But we all have some of those. So, whatever. > [@](#): > > We’re talking about “may/can” not “will/shall.” And you keep saying and saying and saying that it’s “wrong” and “irrational,” but you have absolutely no proof for that, it’s all just your O, which is worth about as much as a fart in the wind to a person who disagrees with you. Well, of course we’re not talking about “will/shall”; I was drawing an analogy. As for “wrong” and “irrational”, I am dropping all those terms. I apologize for using them. What I mean to say is that it’s an abnormal practice with little relevance to how people actually speak English and personally adopting it will do nothing to change that. But there is an empirical claim here and you can call me out on it. The burden is on me to demonstrate that people generally have no problem with using “can” for permission. That is something for which I must produce evidence, unless you already accept that claim. > [@](#): > > This is an excellent example of how you are basically having a conversation with yourself – YOU use “nitpickery” to respond to “irrational hangups” – YOUR term – in reference to “schoolmarmish lectures” – YOUR term again. None of it responds to anything I said. So shall I just leave you alone to argue with yourself? I was afraid you might say that. You said you never advocated for nitpickery and called me out for it. But the context in which I mentioned nitpickery was in response to your saying that schoolmarmish lectures like those on the “can”/“may” distinction were defensible. It’s true that I introduced the term “schoolmarmish lectures”, but what of it? You said they could be defensible; I went on from there. > [@](#): > > The fact that further ambiguity may exist is not actually an argument for imprecision. We make it as precise as we can; we don’t say “the hell with it” if we can’t make it perfectly precise in every respect in every context. Did you have a response that actually answered my assertion that the “may/can” distinction has utility and therefore is not irrational? Well, alright. Supposing I advocate the following of a distinction in the English language between “may” as in “May I please have some cake?” and “mape” as in “It mape rain tomorrow”. Thus, “She may bake a cake” would denote permission to bake while “She mape bake a cake” would denote possibility of baking. Would this distinction have utility? I’m dropping the terminology of “irrational”, but would it be silly to push for this distinction? If it’s troubling that “mape” is not an existing English word, what if I just pushed for always replacing possibility-“may” with “might” or some other word, so that one must say “It might rain tomorrow” or “She might bake a cake” for discussion of possibility, reserving “She may bake a cake” for permission to bake. Would this proscription have utility? Would it be silly to push for it? How would you respond to people who advocated it? > [@](#): > > The fact that people are sometimes required to segregate technical speech from personal speech is not actually an argument for unnecessarily making such chasms wider. Again, I was pointing out that distinguishing between “may” and “can” is not just useful but required in many professions and therefore is not irrational. Did you have a response to that? My response was that its ostensible usefulness in some narrow professional contexts was not a strong argument for advocating it as a conversational rule. If people do find that it’s something useful to them conversationally, though, they may start using it conversationally. I have nothing personally against it; I just wouldn’t pretend it is a distinction which already exists in conversation. It may eventually; language changes, but mostly not through conscious rulemaking/rule-following. > [@](#): > > Who are “they” and on what basis do you assert what “they” notice, and how frequently? On what basis do you state that this is “an inaccurate impression they’ve trained themselves to receive”? You have quite a few bald assertions, but I see very little to back it up. “They” was the people you referred to in your sentence “To many people who continue to believe that ‘can’ and ‘may’ mean different things, and should be used accordingly, misusing one for the other sounds uneducated.” But you are right to call me out on this; I need to bring more evidence for this claim. > [@](#): > > Says you. I’ve already listed reasons to maintain the distinction. You haven’t actually answered them. And I think training your kids to understand the difference between “funny” and “odd” is actually a great example; in my world, those words are rarely synonyms, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t join you in raising kids who cannot appreciate nuance of meaning because they’ve never been taught that such a thing exists. In my world, they’re rarely synonyms too, though it happens. But it would definitely be odd to pretend “funny” means “odd” while “jocular” is the only correct term for “humorous”. Don’t you agree? You’d probably want to preserve the fact that “funny” means humorous, because that’s how most people speak. Well, for a similar reason, I see nothing wrong with accepting that “can” can refer to permission, since that’s how most people speak. I think kids are perfectly well able to appreciate nuance of meaning without any explicit instruction. I think people, from middle-school dropouts to college professors, are marvelously fluent in their native languages without any explicit education. The main influence on one’s skills with language is simply one’s exposure to and participation with it. > [@](#): > > Not for me, it doesn’t. I don’t have kids. What exasperates me is the fact that speech choice is so obviously a matter of STYLE, of personal preference, and therefore obviously of opinion, yet you insist on presenting your opinion as “correct” and others’ as “inaccurate”. I’m bothered when people can’t distinguish between opinion and fact, though, hell, for all I know that’s another of those “irrational” distinctions you’ve decided to dispense with. I apologize again for all my needlessly aggressive terminology. It was foolish of me to use it. And, again, I do not have any problem with the way you personally speak; I will at most say “How odd… if you’re doing that with conscious effort, perhaps you should just relax and speak naturally, and if not… how odd”. I only want to cut off any claims that such personal idiosyncracies have any wider applicability; that others are in some sense misspeaking or engaging in misuse or making mistakes or being sloppy or whatever by not drawing the particular “can”/“may” distinction we’ve been discussing. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/115 "2007-08-31T00:11:21Z")
Indeed, if it’s nuance of meaning you want, perhaps that’s in support of the ability to use both “can” and “may” for permission. There may be subtle connotational differences between uses of permission-“can” and uses of permission-“may” which people grasp intuitively even if they can’t explicitly put their finger on it. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/116 "2007-08-31T00:15:37Z")
When I go back to check threads sometimes I see some pretty ugly mistakes I make. Maybe there’s something to that grammer thing. Good thing I’m handy with tools and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/117 "2007-08-31T00:16:06Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] Then, **Jodi** , what was the antecedent to “this one” in post 86? Doesn’t that refer to the school marmish lecture you are presumably giving to **Indistinguishable** , who is presumably not a kid? I’m just saying that’s how I read it, and I was trying to show there was an honest misunderstanding, at least in that point, at least for me. I thought it odd at the time, given your post #80, but there you go, a misunderstanding. [/QUOTE] I wasn’t presuming to give anyone a lecture. I meant “this one” as in this lecture, this topic, given to your kids. And the very next sentence reads “and lecturing other adults is rude in almost every case.” ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/118 "2007-08-31T00:24:40Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] But I _am_ irritated in every subject – not just grammar – when people try to beat me over the head with their opinion, dressing it up as if it were fact. [/QUOTE] I have been carried away into some of this head-beating, and I apologize; it’s not an effective tactic and it’s not a courteous one. I do believe that there is an objective factual support for my position in some of the areas where we disagree, but nonetheless, I have been unnecessarily prickly about it. > [@](#): > > I _offered_ to agree to disagree, assuming s/he would agree that (a) kids are lectured by their parents on lots of things, but (b) correcting other adults is rude – and please tell me what is objectionable about either of those “conditions.” I agree with both of those statements; they are both true statements (or, at least (a) is factually true and my judgement is to concur with (b)). But just because kids are in fact lectured by their parents on lots of things doesn’t mean none of those lectures deserve scrutiny. A “can”/“may” distinction lecture, in particular, is one I think would be silly and not useful. > [@](#): > > But hell no; s/he’d rather continue to insist that s/he is correct and anyone disagreeing with him/her is wrong. So let’s see the proof of that. Well, I do believe I am correct, that is true. That is inherent in my having a position. And similarly, I believe those who disagree, those who hold contradictory positions, are wrong. Again, that is inherent in my having a position. That’s not something to apologize for. But I have been a bit tactless in my defense of those positions, perhaps rude at times, and for that I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/119 "2007-08-31T00:31:11Z")
[QUOTE=Omegaman] When I go back to check threads sometimes I see some pretty ugly mistakes I make. Maybe there’s something to that grammer thing. Good thing I’m handy with tools and whatnot. [/QUOTE] I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here. Are you responding to a feeling that some of us don’t think there’s any use to grammar, or perhaps that we don’t think there’s any such thing as grammar? If so, I never said there was no such thing as grammar. My position is that there are legitimate rules of grammar, which people generally follow and instinctively recognize violations of; even if there are occasional speech errors, editing errors, etc., these can be naturally spotted on sober reflection. These are the rules even middle-school dropouts follow, things preventing them from saying “The man dog bites in” in place of “The man was bitten by a dog”. When it comes to spoken language, these rules are pretty much learned by all native speakers to fluency with no explicit instruction at all. Then there are rules that are made-up, contrived, have little relation to how people actually speak. Ones that people actually can be ignorant of because one can only learn them with explicit instruction from on high, since they have no relation to real-world speech. The ones that give rise to the game of grammar gotcha. And for these I have no use. If I’ve entirely misinterpreted the reason for your post, then ignore me. (Well, let me know about the misinterpretation, and then ignore me) ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/120 "2007-08-31T01:02:43Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Let me back off of and apologize for my previous use of loaded terminology and be more precise about what I’m saying, since, as **Jamaika a jamaikaiaké** notes, I have no desire for you to change your natural way of speaking or contempt for whatever that natural way is. I really do want to take the animosity down a notch. [/quote] Okay, thank you. > [@](#): > > My position is that idiosyncratically holding a “can”/“may” distinction is like idiosyncratically holding a “funny”(meaning odd)/“jocular”(meaning humorous). This pre-supposes there is anything idiosncratic about using the distinction, which there isn’t. You can consider it “odd” if you like; I seriously doubt anyone cares. > [@](#): > > It would be factually incorrect to claim that such a deviation from the norm was, in fact, the accurate definition for everybody, or something like that, but as long as one steers clear of that, one isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s just an odd idiosyncracy. It is NOT an indiosycracy. It is an established use. It’s like you can’t make an argument without starting from the conclusion you want to reach. > [@](#): > > . . . \*t’s an abnormal practice with little relevance to how people actually speak English and personally adopting it will do nothing to change that. Y’know, from “wrong” to “abnormal” is pretty much a lateral move. :dubious: > [@](#): > > But there is an empirical claim here and you can call me out on it. The burden is on me to demonstrate that people generally have no problem with using “can” for permission. That is something for which I must produce evidence, unless you already accept that claim. I freely accept it. I never said some people don’t conflate “can/may”; lots of people do. I said that choosing NOT to do so is not “odd,” abnormal," “idiosncratic,” or any of the above. It is a choice that many people make. > [@](#): > > Well, alright. Supposing I advocate the following . . . . You know, recourse to a hypothetical is not a response to my pointing out that the distinction between “may” and “can” has obvious utility, in that it is more precise than conflating the two. For the third time, do you deny the utility of distinguishing between “is able to” and “has permission to”? > [@](#): > > My response was that its ostensible usefulness in some narrow professional contexts was not a strong argument for advocating it as a conversational rule. First, professionally speaking, the usefulness is not ostensible, it’s actual. Secondly, I have never advocated it as a conversational rule for anyone except myself – and I have defended the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit, including how they speak. > [@](#): > > If people do find that it’s something useful to them conversationally, though, they may start using it conversationally. I have nothing personally against it; I just wouldn’t pretend it is a distinction which already exists in conversation. It may eventually; language changes, but mostly not through conscious rulemaking/rule-following. Again, assertions without any proof. The distinction already exists. It’s not as if it’s coming into the language; if anything, it’s fading from the language. You’ve somehow switched your stance to implying that the distinction is an innovation; it isn’t, it already exists: [Cite](http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/english_grammar_style/difference_between_may_can.html); [Cite](http://writing.lifetips.com/faq/22159/0/what-8217-s-the-difference-between-may-and-can/index.html); [Cite](http://www.cs.uu.nl/docs/tandt/html/Scholars/scholars_8.html). Note that I am not saying that conflating “may” and “can” is wrong; I’m just saying that failing to do so is not wrong, either. > [@](#): > > I see nothing wrong with accepting that “can” can refer to permission, since that’s how most people speak. Fine. Accept it. I have no problem with that unless or until you are deciding that every other person, making that choice for themselves, MUST make the same decision that you have and dispense with the distinction. > [@](#): > > I apologize again for all my needlessly aggressive terminology. It was foolish of me to use it. And, again, I do not have any problem with the way you personally speak; I will at most say “How odd… if you’re doing that with conscious effort, perhaps you should just relax and speak naturally, and if not… how odd”. I appreciate your apology, but I am nonetheless struck by your inability to dispense from value judgments: “How odd,” you say. “If only you would relax and speak naturally . . . .” Here’s a news flash: I’m perfectly relaxed and the distinction between “may” and “can” is one I more or less naturally draw, to the extent any language choice is natural, and with the admission I don’t draw it religiously. > [@](#): > > I only want to cut off any claims that such personal idiosyncracies have any wider applicability; that others are in some sense misspeaking or engaging in misuse or making mistakes or being sloppy or whatever by not drawing the particular “can”/“may” distinction we’ve been discussing. You have not shown that the usage is an idiosyncrasy. And some people may believe that failing to draw that distinction IS sloppy. Since that is an opinion, you are not in a position to say they are wrong. 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