'May' for permission

In December I showed the sample version of A Guide to English Language Usage to a friend. On seeing the introduction to the modal verbs article, he mentioned that may is hardly ever used for permission nowadays. I accepted that it is perhaps unusual, pointing out that the book is written for people who may (possibly) be reading English written some time ago, when its use was common. I certainly remember being told in the 1950s that I should say ‘May I …?’ rather than ‘Can I …?’ when asking for permission – and if the teacher said ‘No, you may not leave the room,’ the door could have been locked with three padlocks for all the physical possibility of leaving that I felt was available to me. The dividing line between permission and possibility is often one of internal perception.

In the part of that article where I discuss permission I say: ‘With reference to permission may is rather more formal and is less common than can,’ without going so far as to say that it is hardly ever used. However, it does seem that may for permission is still used colloquially, or maybe it is making a comeback. During the time that I spent in Britain over Christmas and New Year 2006-2007 I found the following examples of may used for permission:

• In a TV programme called The Big Fat Quiz, broadcast at Christmas 2006, the panellists were shown film posters that had been manipulated to include pictures of themselves. One asked ‘Can I have a print of that?’ The quizmaster replied ‘You certainly may.’ In doing so he was not only using may for permission but he was even changing the modal verb used in the question (can) to use may in his short answer.

• A taxi firm in Wrexham, North Wales, has a recorded telephone answering service that says ‘If you wish, you may leave a message.’

• A notice in Merseyrail trains reads: ‘The Rail Passenger Council exists to represent all rail users and you may contact them at …’ (Note the inconsistency as to whether that Council has a singular or plural reference.)

Comments

[Baralbion]

First example. Is there not, intentionally or not, something arch in the use of "may" here?

Second example. This is surely a genteelism. Better to say something like "If you'd like to leave a message, we'll call you back".

Third example. Difficult. "The Rail Passenger Council exist" would sound odd and so would "you may contact it". But if we can use the third person plural pronoun to refer to an antecedent of uncertain gender why not do the same for an antecedent of uncertain number?

[Peter Harvey]

Baralbion,

I tend to agree with you on all counts, but in one and two that doesn't alter the fact that may is used for permission. Then there is John Lennon's 'You may say I'm a dreamer'(Imagine), which admittedly might be possibility, and an article in the London Review of Books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n06/zize01_.html) which explicitly translates the German Du darfst as You may. Both of those came up at the top of a Google search for "you may".

In the third, the meaning is clear and the question is whether a periphrasis (you may contact its members) should be required. I was merely noting. Group nouns can have both numbers but I don't recall seeing them both in the same sentence in that way before.

[Ronnie]

"Can I have a print of that?" Is it possible? Are there copies? Does the Xerox work? "You certainly may." The reply means that there are no technical difficulties and the company will not stand in the way of my giving you a copy.

[Mikey]

Michael Lewis, in The English Verb, also notes that "may" for permission is on a fast decline, yet he also states that both "may" and "can" have always been used for permission. Lewis says that the basic semantic meaning of the two modals, whenused for permission, is as follows:

may = do you allow/permit me
can = is it allowed/permitted

Example such as these show that there may be some truth in Lewis' conclusions:

May I smoke in here = Will/Do you permit it
Can I smoke in here = Do the rules permit it

What do you think? Is there any truth in those suggested distinctions?