When did people (or teachers) start become so lax about "May I" vs. "Can I."

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=Mangetout]

Until I went to Denmark on a business trip. Nearly everyone out there seems to speak excellent English, but the (mis)use of ‘can I?’ to mean ‘may I?’ doesn’t seem to be known there* - so I found myself asking “Please can I have one of those cakes” (in shops and cafes) and being told “Yes, you can”, but with no subsequent action to give it to me, and unlike when English teachers do this to prove a point, they were completely in earnest - it seems they just thought I was enquiring if the items were truly for sale.

  • I think this might be partly because of the proper distinction in English and partly because of the way things are asked for in the Danish language - I think they say something equivalent to “I want”, but it isn’t rude or pushy as it might be in English.
    [/QUOTE]

This is also true in Holland, because the distinction is real and the words are close to the English words in sound. To be allowed to is mogen and to be able to is kunnen. So a Dutch kid says “mag ik dat doen” for “may I do that” and “mag” sounds very much like the English word “may”. Ditto for “kan” in place of “can”. But the idiomatic use of one for the other does not exist in Dutch; they are different words which mean different things.

So the error is simply never made by a Dutch person speaking english; and in the reverse case they understand you to be asking if you are able to do something if you use the word “can”.

22

[QUOTE=fetus]
Language is fluid. Every generation, every subculture, and every speaker of a given language brings their own beliefs and biases into it and it becomes a different animal altogether. The rules of a language aren’t the arbitrary prescriptions forced upon it, they’re the result of an organic process.

Using “can I” for permission isn’t a “mistake”, it’s a correct usage becuase it fits perfectly into the American English system and everyone understands what it means. To teach people otherwise is to miss the point: it’s inappropriate to ask for something at, say, a job interview by saying “Can I get…?” But it’s just as inappropriate to go around enforcing imaginary rules in other situations. Think about it this way: the outfit you’d wear to a job interview is way different from the one you’d wear to a barbeque, but that doesn’t mean one is “right” and the other is “wrong”. It’s absolutely vital to know how to dress for an interview, but you’d get rather funny looks in this country if you went around telling people it’s “wrong” to wear a T-shirt to a barbeque.

As for people “pronouncing ‘our’ as ‘are’”, that’s not a “mistake”, either, that’s a feature of a regional dialect. Specifically, most Californians don’t have the sound GuyNblueJeans is thinking of in “our”–the same way that the rest of you don’t know how to make all the sounds necessary to speak Norwegian, our version of the language just doesn’t have the vowel sound that other Americans use in “our” and we pronounce it like the vowel in “are”. That’s not “wrong”, it’s just how the language is spoken in this dialect. Since LA has such a massive influence on TV and film in this country, you’re going to run into the dialect a lot. It’s no more “wrong” than your dialect is–but I could just as easily fly to wherever you live and go around telling everyone “‘our’ rhymes with ‘are’, damnit! What’s wrong with you people?”

Edit: I just realized that GuyNblueJeans may be saying that “our” is supposed to be pronounced like “hour”. Whoops! I was thinking of “caught”. Pretty much the same argument applies anyway, even if the specifics don’t line up the way I intended them to.
[/QUOTE]

I’ll admit that I’m way not qualified to “take on” anyone on planet earth with what is proper and improper English, as during my school days I flunked the subject on a consistent bases. However, I’m pretty dad gone certain that you’re in error when you say that it’s okay to use “are” in place of “our” (pronounced “hour”). And, too, while English is indeed fluid, there is no way that one can say that bad English is okay just because a lot of people are laying it out incorrectly.

Also, Methinks California is way too vast and diverse to suggest that the populous is like some kind of an enclave in which one can stamp them as not being able to pronounce certain words the way they should, or that Californians in general have a certain proclivity to pronounce particular words one way or another way.

But one thing I do feel that many Californians tend to do that bothers me a little is that they’ll say “okay” in place of saying “thank you.” :dubious:

Anyway, if my comments are in fact total hogwash, please forgive … as all of this English language stuff is as much over my head the same way that math is. Basically I’m just a schmuck struggling around here but like to sometimes try and feel big because personal validation hardly came (to me) in spades when I was growing up, thus at times I’ll flair-out my aspiring greatness so as to imagine others marveling at my splendor. It’s an ego insecurity thing and, yes, I am working on it, sorta.:stuck_out_tongue:

23

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Until I went to Denmark on a business trip. Nearly everyone out there seems to speak excellent English, but the (mis)use of ‘can I?’ to mean ‘may I?’ doesn’t seem to be known there* - so I found myself asking “Please can I have one of those cakes” (in shops and cafes) and being told “Yes, you can”, but with no subsequent action to give it to me, and unlike when English teachers do this to prove a point, they were completely in earnest - it seems they just thought I was enquiring if the items were truly for sale.

  • I think this might be partly because of the proper distinction in English and partly because of the way things are asked for in the Danish language - I think they say something equivalent to “I want”, but it isn’t rude or pushy as it might be in English.
    [/QUOTE]

I was raised by someone whose native language did the same thing. “May I” was more like “I would like,” and it’s rubbed off on the way I ask for things from servicepeople. :o I did, however, play a lot of “Mother, May I…?” in my early years, so I still use “may” instead of “can” when asking permission for things if I don’t use “is it alright if I…” as a preemptive phrase.

24

I’m not lax, I intentionally violate the rule to avoid sounding stilted in everyday speech. It’s one of the regrettable things about English, that we sometimes need to do this.

25

[QUOTE=amarinth]
It wasn’t for the bathroom - it was for everything “Can I get more juice?”, “Can I go outside?”, “Can I play with ____?”, things a child would legitimately have to ask permission to do at that moment. So, no, not being pricks by trying to teach me the difference between the two words, or at least no more than when they tried to break me of using “me” as a subject.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t imagine doing this with my kid and not feeling like a tyrannical, power-tripping ogre. I’m not saying that’s what your parents were doing, but for me, insisting that how somebody says something is more important than listening to what they’re saying, to the point where I’m pretending not to understand them if they don’t say it the way I want, would be the height of jerkishness.

Especially given that a) I know it’s not a distinction I consistently make myself in speech, and b) the long history of examples that show the distinction is artificial and murky at best

26

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I’ll admit that I’m way not qualified to “take on” anyone on planet earth with what is proper and improper English, as during my school days I flunked the subject on a consistent bases. However, I’m pretty dad gone certain that you’re in error when you say that it’s okay to use “are” in place of “our” (pronounced “hour”). And, too, while English is indeed fluid, there is no way that one can say that bad English is okay just because a lot of people are laying it out incorrectly.

[/QUOTE]

What’s your definition of “bad english”? And “okay” for that matter? The formal grammar that most north americans learn is based on the typology of Latin (which makes absolutely no logical sense, though it makes lots of historical sense). It’s also what linguists tend to call “prescriptive,” that is, rather than observing how the language is used and writing descriptive rules or constraints to predict those usages formal grammars simply state rules that may or may not be observed in the language.

These rules, and most formal english grammars, were originally little more than a tool for stratifying classes based on dialect. Now I won’t begrudge you that certain dialects are expected in certain contexts; many english speakers (employers, for instance,) will judge a person based on their dialect: if you deviate significantly from formal conventions, you run the risk of being seen as less intelligent or less educated.

Social convention aside though, “there is no way that one can say that bad English is okay just because a lot of people are laying it out incorrectly” is absolute BS. The reason a large number of native speakers are producing something “incorrectly” is because their grammar obviously allows for it, and if that’s the case you’re just seeing dialectal variation.

27

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
However, I’m pretty dad gone certain that you’re in error when you say that it’s okay to use “are” in place of “our” (pronounced “hour”).
[/QUOTE]

As fetus said, this is probably more of an accent issue than a word choice issue. (Probably = almost certainly). That is, if you asked those people to write down what they were saying, they would in fact write down “our”; they just happen to pronounce that word in the same way as “are” (or perhaps in a way which just sounds like “are” to your ears).

Go ahead and tell me the accent/pronunciation is “wrong”, if you want, but if it’s really all that common in your area, I don’t know how you can sensibly maintain that position, any more than I could sensibly tell an Australian “Shape up and speak properly without that incorrect accent, like us Americans do”.

28

[QUOTE=fetus]

Using “can I” for permission isn’t a “mistake”, it’s a correct usage becuase it fits perfectly into the American English system and everyone understands what it means. To teach people otherwise is to miss the point: it’s inappropriate to ask for something at, say, a job interview by saying “Can I get…?” But it’s just as inappropriate to go around enforcing imaginary rules in other situations. Think about it this way: the outfit you’d wear to a job interview is way different from the one you’d wear to a barbeque, but that doesn’t mean one is “right” and the other is “wrong”. It’s absolutely vital to know how to dress for an interview, but you’d get rather funny looks in this country if you went around telling people it’s “wrong” to wear a T-shirt to a barbeque.
[/QUOTE]
To me though, the use of “may” for permission is always correct, so you can’t go wrong by using it. So why not learn the preferred (I would still say the “correct”) term? It is helpful for a teacher to teach children to use “may” for permission because then when they are speaking in circles where proper language matters, they won’t be thought of as uneducated rubes for using “can” in the"permission" sense.

29

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
… However, I’m pretty dad gone certain that you’re in error when you say that it’s okay to use “are” in place of “our”…

[/QUOTE]

it’s dad burn, dag nam it!

30

[QUOTE=Kevbo]
it’s dad burn, dag nam it!
[/QUOTE]

It’s “dagnabbit”, consarnit!

31

More seriously (since both “dagnammit” and “dagnabbit” are found in the wild), I think GuyNblueJeans’s phrase may be derived from the semipopular minced oath “dad gum”.

32

[QUOTE=silenus]
I’m a teacher, and I hold the students to proper grammar on this issue at all times.
[/QUOTE]

There’s a great scene in the Barry Levinson movie Avalon, where a kid (played by a young Elijah Wood) asks repeatedly if he can go to the bathroom, but the teacher won’t let him leave the room, because he didn’t use “may.” As I remember, the teacher eventually calls the kid’s home for a parent-teacher conference on this matter, and the grandfather, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, comes in place of the parents. He’s an immigrant and doesn’t understand the distinction. He said, “In the old days, if you had to pee, you peed on a tree - with no “may” or “can”. That’s progress.”

33

And to address the OP, as I remember that scene in the movie was set in the 1950s, so back then at least, teachers were more particular than now.

34

[QUOTE=Omi no Kami]
What’s your definition of “bad english”? And “okay” for that matter? The formal grammar that most north americans learn is based on the typology of Latin (which makes absolutely no logical sense, though it makes lots of historical sense). It’s also what linguists tend to call “prescriptive,” that is, rather than observing how the language is used and writing descriptive rules or constraints to predict those usages formal grammars simply state rules that may or may not be observed in the language.

These rules, and most formal english grammars, were originally little more than a tool for stratifying classes based on dialect. Now I won’t begrudge you that certain dialects are expected in certain contexts; many english speakers (employers, for instance,) will judge a person based on their dialect: if you deviate significantly from formal conventions, you run the risk of being seen as less intelligent or less educated.

Social convention aside though, “there is no way that one can say that bad English is okay just because a lot of people are laying it out incorrectly” is absolute BS. The reason a large number of native speakers are producing something “incorrectly” is because their grammar obviously allows for it, and if that’s the case you’re just seeing dialectal variation.
[/QUOTE]

Bad English to me means breaking rules of grammar that most regard as being the way it ought to be written or spoken. Maybe I should have stuck with “incorrect English,” though I guess I could be called on to define that, too.

“Okay,” according to my little electronic Franklin dictionary, means “all right.” So when folks use the term in place of “thank you,” I take it to mean that they have a problem with finding the humility to acknowledge that someone has done something nice for them.

I once read a book about the history of English and am thus familiar with the debate that goes on among linguists regarding whether or not English dictionaries should be prescriptive or descriptive. I guess I feel they should be a little of both, but don’t care to think it out (for now) to know for sure, as I might experience a brain cramp if I try. (There’s another branch of learn-id :eek: folks that are experts on dictionaries, though I can’t think of their title at the moment, so referencing linguist(s) in this context will have to do.)

I disagree with you about your point that dialect is being confused (on my part) with lousy grammar. It’s a fact that there are a lot of people that are either not too bright or (such as myself) they seem to lack a grammar gene. The case I made about the words “our” and “are” still stand. You (or someone else) asserted that it’s more of a matter of some folks having trouble with their pronunciations than not knowing the difference in their meaning, and yet I’ve many times seen people make the error when writing, as well.

Another example of word pronounciation confusion involves the word “predict.” Nearly everyone says it as “perdict.”

Well, friend, I thank you for your time and thoughts. :cool:

35

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
As fetus said, this is probably more of an accent issue than a word choice issue. (Probably = almost certainly). That is, if you asked those people to write down what they were saying, they would in fact write down “our”; they just happen to pronounce that word in the same way as “are” (or perhaps in a way which just sounds like “are” to your ears).

Go ahead and tell me the accent/pronunciation is “wrong”, if you want, but if it’s really all that common in your area, I don’t know how you can sensibly maintain that position, any more than I could sensibly tell an Australian “Shape up and speak properly without that incorrect accent, like us Americans do”.
[/QUOTE]

I maintain it because it is wrong. You might as well say that if the people living in your household think that one plus one equals seven, then they’re right because that’s what they believe.

And as I told Omi, I see it all the time whereby people write “are” in place of “our.” So I guess we disagree there, too. :smack:

I suspect that this accent thing is just an excuse, as neither of the words are so hard to pronounce. “Massachusetts,” on the other hand, is a killer to say it correctly. :frowning:

36

GuyNblueJeans - I have to confess that when I read your first post, I had a hard time understanding what you were talking about. I couldn’t figure out how you tell whether someone was saying “are” or “our” just by listening. In my Northern California accent (which does a lot of funny things with “r” words), those two words are no more distinguishable in speech than “too”, “to” and “two”. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I know the difference, and that that we are using correct grammar even when speaking with our peculiar accent.

Oh, and I use “may” and “can” correctly, but wouldn’t bother to correct anyone who used “can” more colloquially.

37

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I suspect that this accent thing is just an excuse, as neither of the words are so hard to pronounce.
[/QUOTE]

An excuse? You think they’re just itching to make the words homophonous for some reason? Or that they’re perhaps too lazy to make the distinction? I can tell you, no matter how tired or exhausted I am, I never pronounce “our” and “are” the same way… because that’s not the manner of speaking I grew up being exposed to. It’s not part of my accent. On the other hand, I really do pronounce “metal” and “medal” the same way, despite being well aware that they are two distinct words, because that is part of my accent. It’s not laziness, it’s not ignorance, it’s not me looking for an excuse to speak incorrectly; it’s just me speaking in the manner of my peers as I grew up, same as for anyone else.

This is not at all like the case of holding a belief, where you can be wrong when your beliefs are in conflict with the nature of reality. Correctness of the way one talks is just about adhering to a particular social convention, and in this case, a particular speech community seems to have pronunciation conventions of a sort condoning the pronunciation of “our” like “are”. Nothing so terrible about that. Might as well rant at the Englishmen who make “court” and “caught” homophonous. Or at SpoilerVirgin, who has so bravely told us of his sharing the particular “speech defect” at issue here…

38

[QUOTE=SpoilerVirgin]
GuyNblueJeans - I have to confess that when I read your first post, I had a hard time understanding what you were talking about. I couldn’t figure out how you tell whether someone was saying “are” or “our” just by listening. In my Northern California accent (which does a lot of funny things with “r” words), those two words are no more distinguishable in speech than “too”, “to” and “two”. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I know the difference, and that that we are using correct grammar even when speaking with our peculiar accent.

Oh, and I use “may” and “can” correctly, but wouldn’t bother to correct anyone who used “can” more colloquially.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, if you say so. But I’d be curious as to how this malformation occurred to begin with? :eek: (Always thought they had pretty decent teachers there in Californiyighyeah.)

39

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
Okay, if you say so. But I’d be curious as to how this malformation occurred to begin with? :eek: (Always thought they had pretty decent teachers there in Californiyighyeah.)
[/QUOTE]

Presumably, the teachers in Northern California mostly have Northern California accents, as well. After all, the children aren’t inventing it out of wholecloth. At any rate, though, contrary to popular misconception, no one learns how to speak their native language through being taught how in school. Perhaps a few half-remembered proscriptions here and there will occasionally pop into one’s mind, but… you learnt to talk through osmosis from observing the speech of those around you, a process that started when you were a small child well before you entered school, and which continues through to fluency even without formal education. Middle-school dropouts who couldn’t locate Canada on a map are perfectly capable of speaking their native language, shocking as that may seem to you. I mean, it couldn’t be any other way. Almost all of the rules of spoken language are ones your teachers never explicitly taught you. In particular, no teacher ever told me to pronounce “metal” and “medal” the same way or to pronounce “caught” and “cot” differently or to use a different ‘n’ sound in “sink” from the one in “sin” or to use a different diphthong in “rice” from the one in “rise”, I just happened to pick those up. That is to say, no teacher ever taught me to have a largely north New Jersey accent, and they’d certainly leave me well enough alone if I’d had some other one.

The situation is different from written language, where there is a significant component of explicit instruction required (though even there, people tend to have misconceptions about the role and impact of education), but that’s irrelevant to this debate over proper spoken language and the pronunciation of “our”.

40

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
An excuse? You think they’re just itching to make the words homophonous for some reason? Or that they’re perhaps too lazy to make the distinction? I can tell you, no matter how tired or exhausted I am, I never pronounce “our” and “are” the same way… because that’s not the manner of speaking I grew up being exposed to. It’s not part of my accent. On the other hand, I really do pronounce “metal” and “medal” the same way, despite being well aware that they are two distinct words, because that is part of my accent. It’s not laziness, it’s not ignorance, it’s not me looking for an excuse to speak incorrectly; it’s just me speaking in the manner of my peers as I grew up, same as for anyone else.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8560831#
This is not at all like the case of holding a belief, where you can be wrong when your beliefs are in conflict with the nature of reality. Correctness of the way one talks is just about adhering to a particular social convention, and in this case, a particular speech community seems to have pronunciation conventions of a sort condoning the pronunciation of “our” like “are”. Nothing so terrible about that. Might as well rant at the Englishmen who make “court” and “caught” homophonous. Or at SpoilerVirgin, who has so bravely told us of his sharing the particular “speech defect” at issue here…
[/QUOTE]

I wonder what would happen if you gathered together some of the offenders that are bastardizing the language where you live and said to them, “Look, we’ve got a situation here. We’re bright people but we’re speaking like a bunch of hillbilly idiots. Let’s try and clean it up a bit, okay?” :wink:

I know I’d appreciate it if someone helped me make myself into a better speaker by pointing out in a fun, friendly way my errors.

When I was a kid I was kicked around from one state institution to another, and thus my English was so ragged that when I arrived at a foster home (when I was 11) that was occupied by people that knew a little something about how to properly speak, they wasted no time in letting me know that “I ain’t got…” doesn’t come off as sounding intelligent. So I was happy to correct it.

Do you think people that intersperse their speaking with lots of “you know?” are alright in doing so if that’s just the way they were brought up (even though they know it sounds stupid)?