"Can / May I ask you a question?"

[Wilson Gray]

My original post was not intended as a potentially-major contribution
to the field deserving of serious discussion. I meant only to note
that requests for permission that entail the commission of the act for
which permission is being requested, so that refusal of permission is,
in some very trivial sense, excluded, are a pet peeve of mine.

-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 Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Can / May I ask you a question?"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, no. The person asking these questions (thanks, Kate!) --
>
>  1. May I ask you a question?
>  2. May I interrupt?
>  3. May I speak?
>
> is indeed asking a question, interrupting, or speaking, BUT WITHOUT
> PERMISSION -- which, indeed, is about the only way to initiate the
> conversation. The asker is in essence applying for permission to open
> contentful discourse, but this "application" is not the content
> itself. (I'm sure there's a well-developed theory and analysis of this
> type of opener, and I may even have studied it, but I can't recall
> doing so, and this insta-label will do for now.) The addressee, or
> askee, then has several options:
>
>  a. granting permission, thus accepting the application and allowing
> the discourse proper to begin
>  b. denying permission, rejecting the application and bringing the
> whole conversation to an end (or so he or she hopes)
>  c. other reactions less conformant with the form of the application, such as
>    i. ignoring the asker
>    ii. insulting the asker, e.g., "Go to hell!"
>    iii. saying something like "You already have" or "It's too late to
> ask", etc.
>
> Response type c(iii) takes the question self-referentially, as if it
> were part of the contentful discourse the asker wants to initiate
> rather than a formulaic application for discourse. It may be made
> seriously or jokingly or snarkily, and it may be perceived as any of
> those, not necessarily the same way as the askee meant it.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:22 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!
>> THANK GOD!!!
>> FINALLY, SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!!!
>> That is my ONLY - got that, y'all? - ONLY point!
>> Thank you for further examples of this kind of question.
>> You should use the soubriquet, "Katherine The Great."
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 1:44 AM, Katharine The Grate
>> <katharinethegrate at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Oh, I get it!  It's like:  "May I interrupt?"  and  "May I speak?"
>> > As soon as the phrase is said, it's a done deal.
>> >
>> > Katharine in N. California
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org