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Subject:Re: Can vs. May From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:38:37 -0800
At 09:50 AM 1/26/99 -0800, Thomas Quine wrote:
>... on ... "can" and "may".
>
>... "can"
>suggests ability; ... "may" suggests permission.
>
>The second ... risks sounding condescending, even imperious. I
>think technical documentation should use the word "may" only rarely.
Well, yeah. Kinda. While "may" suggests permission, it also
suggests possibility, as in "it may rain". Certainly, this
would not indicate my giving permission for rain. If you've
seen my picture in "friendly faces", you know I'd never do
that! ;-)
In the spirit of possibility rather than permission, I use
"may" to indicate an arbitrary choice that is not necessarily
the standard course of events, as in "You may do action A or B,
but action B provides the additional benefits of...", which,
in my twisted way of looking at things, says that both actions
are possible but the later is preferable.
