The Difference Between “May” and “Can”

You might remember this from sixth grade (thank you, Mrs Clemens).

• Use “may” when you ask permission.
• Use “can” when you’re talking about ability.

…and therein lies the basis for the humor:

Yes, we break this rule a lot, especially since people use “may” when they mean “might.” I recommend you don’t so that. In fact, don’t do either!

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

You might know this joke:

A guy visits the doctor’s office and has an examination.

Doctor: Looks like you have a henweigh.

Patient: What’s a henweigh?

Doctor: Oh, about five or six pounds.

If you don’t know the joke, it might take a second to get it. The humor hinges on the meaning of the contraction apostrophe s, which the patient uses to mean “what is” and the doctor deliberately takes it to mean “what does.”

Ambiguous contractions aren’t common, but they happen, so watch out.

Feel free to put any that come to mind in the comments.

Well, technically they’re unnecessary (aka redundant), but maybe not, given the context. We can use extra words for emphasis even though the words aren’t actually necessary.

I think “at this time” is also unnecessary…

Special because in this case all the nouns are proper nouns.

In case you don’t know, the character on the right is named “Rat.” And the technical name for this is “back-formation.”

So how’s your name? Could it be a verb? Mention it in the comments.

Face it—this might be worth a snicker to a linguist, but not a laugh. It’s words applying for entrance into the OED.

Don’t get me wrong—I highly recommend the OED. It’s famous for the thoroughness of its definitions (the longest definition is for set) and etymologies, and I typically see a couple articles every year about the new words accepted into its collection. That’s what’s going on here. I confess I don’t know what “bae” or “regram” means. Maybe you could tell me in the comments. Or maybe I’ll find them in next year’s edition.