"Can / May I ask you a question?"

[Benjamin Barrett]

I see, thank you. I don't think I ask people if I can ask them a
question but will try to remember that in the future :)

On Nov 30, 2008, at 8:12 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> I'd accept Excuse me; Can / Will / Would you help me? Are you familiar
> with this library? or even Do you work here?, etc. (Widener has no
> dress code for the lower orders. Hence, there's no way to know whether
> a random person encountered in the stack is a staff member able to
> share knowledge or merely another lost soul.) *Anything* other than
> the mind-bending whatever-it-is-ness of Can / May I ask you a
> question?
>
> -Wilson
>
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 8:08 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com
> > wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "Can / May I ask you a question?"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I sympathize with this. On the other hand, people at the bus stop who
>> cannot say "Excuse me" but just blurt out "What time is it?" annoy me
>> greatly.
>>
>> There are important reasons for prefacing a question with something
>> else. In the case of a library, the question politely indicates a
>> request for information that may impose a burden on the interlocutor
>> and includes recognition that the other person's time is important or
>> that the question is of particular importance to the asker.
>>
>> What wording is preferred? BB
>>
>> On Nov 30, 2008, at 4:28 PM, David Gignilliat wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       David Gignilliat <uvadavidg at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: "Can / May I ask you a question?"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Good post.  Make that two people that are regularly annoyed by
>>> this . My
>>> mother does this all the time, usually right before she starts
>>> asking me
>>> about my love life or for a huge favor. I've thought about jokingly
>>> saying
>>> no, but (like you said) you're already past that point
>>> technically ...
>>>
>>> alas
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 4:44 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>> Subject:      "Can / May I ask you a question?"
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> When I held a service position - the only kind that there is in a
>>>> library, according to the American Library Association - in Widener
>>>> Library, often, patrons would ask me
>>>>
>>>> "Can / May I ask you a question?"
>>>>
>>>> That used to drive me *crazy*! How is it that people can have
>>>> brains
>>>> so weirdly wired as not to be able to understand that, when you
>>>> ask a
>>>> person whether you can ask him a question, you are, by that very
>>>> act,
>>>> asking him a question, regardless of whether he is willing to allow
>>>> you to ask him a question?!! WTF?! The person asked that question
>>>> has
>>>> no choice but to say yes. There's no way that he can tell someone
>>>> that
>>>> has already asked him a question that he *can't* / *may'nt* ask
>>>> him a
>>>> question when he's already asked him a question by asking him
>>>> whether
>>>> he can ask him a question! It's a nasty trap that there's no way
>>>> get
>>>> out of.
>>>>
>>>> I sometimes tried to point out to people who asked me whether they
>>>> could ask me a question that they had already asked me a question
>>>> by
>>>> asking me whether they could ask me a question. Hence, the person's
>>>> request for permission to do what he had already done by the very
>>>> act
>>>> of requesting permission to do it was necessarily, in some sense
>>>> that
>>>> i lack the knowledge to specify, WRONG! But they never understood.
>>>> They would smile and agree with me, but I knew that they were only
>>>> jollying me.
>>>>
>>>> Sigh! Perhaps I'm the only person in the English-speaking world who
>>>> is
>>>> bothered by this, but
>>>>
>>>> AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson
>>>>
>>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint
>>>> to
>>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>> -----
>>>> -Mark Twain
>>>>

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