| 词组 | can, may |
| 释义 | can, may 1. Can and may are most frequently interchangeable in senses denoting possibility. The definition of can in Webster 1909 gave may as a synonym in a definition dealing with possibility and illustrated with this example: • Here can I sit alone, unseen of any —Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1595 The can in the quotation denotes neither power nor permission but possibility. So does this one: • Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference —Shakespeare, Cymbeline, 1610 It's not much of a stretch of meaning from the use in Cymbeline to • "Can I come in, Frank?" —Anthony Trollope, Dr. Thome, 1858 Can in its original form meant "to know of, to know how," and when it came to be used as an auxiliary verb it carried the notion of knowing how to do something— mental ability rather than physical ability. This mental connotation is still common: • I can visualize the helpful comment on my paper — Jessica Mitford, Atlantic, July 1970 • ... one of the advantages of written speech is that it says the same thing to everyone who can read it — John Holt, Atlantic, May 1971 From mental ability can was extended to physical ability: • ... the snow ... gets so deep he can walk right onto the roof —Edward Hoagland, Atlantic, July 1971 • Anyone who can handle a fly rod —Forrest N. Yockey, Ford Times, November 1967 From these two uses, can came to take on the connotation of possibility; if our files are reasonably accurate reflections of present-day use, the "possibility" sense of can is the one most frequently used in edited prose: • Naturally, we are always asking: Can I marry the girl I love? Can I sell my house? —W. H. Auden, Columbia Forum, Winter 1970 • Maybe then, with some honest grub sticking to my ribs, I can become a passable writer —Jean Stafford, Vogue, 1 Jan. 1972 • ... an infinite number of lines ... can be drawn through a point —Robert W. Marks, The New Mathematics Dictionary and Handbook, 1964 • One can but admire his restrained use of the material —Suzanne Slesin, N. Y. Times Mag, 14 Apr. 1985 The transition from "possibility" to "permission" is subtler than the handbooks think. Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary contained this as part of his definition 5: • ... to be free from any restraint of moral, civil or political obligation, or from any positive prohibition. This sense involves nothing more than permission given by not prohibiting. It constitutes the most common "permission" sense we find written: • ... took off from her [the bride's] head the myrtle wreath, which only maidens can wear —Henry Adams, letter, 17 May 1859 • If the President wants the nomination, he can have it —Elizabeth Drew, Atlantic, May 1971 • Greece is the only country in the Eastern Mediterranean where the Sixth Fleet may count on landing. Theoretically it can land in Turkey, but... —Elizabeth Drew, Atlantic, November 1971 • The new prayers are not compulsory, and vicars can use the old forms if they like —IV. Y. Times, 11 Nov. 1979 • New members are required to wait forty-eight hours after signing up before they can play —James K. Glassman, Atlantic, September 1971 • You cannot enter, but you can walk round part of the thick white walls —Nadine Gordimer, Atlantic, November 1971 The cannot in the last example distinctly implies a denial of permission. Lamberts 1972 points out that for negative uses in which permission is denied, cannot and can't have largely replaced may not and mayn't. The use of can in a direct question to request permission is basically an oral use. Note that all of our examples come from recorded speech or fictional speech: • Can I proceed without interruption? —Senator Stuart Symington, at the 1953 Army-McCarthy hearings (Pyles 1979) • "Can I speak to Detective-Sergeant Sparrow?" I asked —Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt, 1969 • She licked the cream off her fingers, slowly, one at a time, with an appreciative popping sound. "Beaut. Can I have another piece?" —Anne Mulcock, Landscape with Figures, 1971 • Can I turn to the subject on which you are being most attacked at the moment ... ? —Nicholas Woolley (BBC interviewer), The Listener, 8 Aug. 1974 If this is almost exclusively an oral use, why should we find it so often mentioned in books on writing? Yet we do find in, for instance, Cook 1985—a handbook published by The Modern Language Association of America presumably for college or graduate-school students— this sort of statement: • In formal contexts, the rule goes, may refers to permission, can to ability: May I leave now? Can she bake a cherry pie? What sort of formal context is being referred to here? Need anyone write "May I go now?" or "Can she bake a cherry pie?" in a journal essay? In a report to the President? In an address to a learned society? It would seem unlikely. But what other formal context could be referred to in a book with the subtitle How to Improve Your Own Writing? The answer was probably discovered by Compton 1898, who found the quotation from Trollope's Dr. Thome that we quoted earlier. Compton excuses Trollope's use of can in the question by noting that Trollope put the word in the mouth of a young speaker; Compton opines that the misuse of can for may is an error that belongs mostly to one's childhood years. When you add this opinion to the fact that a great many of the books that insist on the distinction were written for schoolchildren, it becomes clear that we are dealing with a pedagogical tradition. The can/may distinction is a traditional part of the American school curriculum. The fact that the distinction is largely ignored by people once out of school is also a tradition. Conclusion: The uses of can which request permission are seldom found in edited prose. In general, this use of can belongs to speech, reported or fictional. In negative statements, cannot and can't are much more frequently used than may not and mayn't; use in negative contexts is seldom noticed or criticized. May is still used, of course: • And I said, 'Mr. President, I want to talk to you. If I may, I'll come right up there and see you.' —Harry S. Truman, quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 2. An important aspect of the business of distinguishing the proper uses of can and may is the erection of a strict line of demarcation between the two. As far as we know, Samuel Johnson was one of the first to do this: 3. It is distinguished from may, as power from permission; I can do it, it is in my power; I may do it, it is allowed me: but in poetry they are confounded. We can find much the same statement made more recently: • In formal English a distinction is drawn between can and may. Can is used when indicating physical ability to do something: "I can jump more than five feet." May is used when indicating permission to do something: "You may stay home from school tomorrow." However, it is only fair to say that the distinction is often ignored ... —Harper 1985 Johnson's 1755 definition of can shows that he was ignorant of the origin of the word; he did not know that its earliest senses implied mental ability, and he did not recognize the uses implying possibility, although such uses may have been the "confounded" ones he found in poetry. If Boswell reports correctly, Johnson himself was one of the confounders: • He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea, in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind —Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 The sense of the first can in Boswell's paraphrase concerns neither power nor permission but possibility, and particularly that part of the realm of possibility dealing with what ought to be rather than what can be or what is. There is no admixture of the notion of power or of physical ability here. This use is standard and very common in the English of those who write on usage: • That different] can only be followed by from & not by to is a SUPERSTITION —Fowler 1926 • ... amorous can only be used of persons —Follett 1966 • Responsibility can be put only on people, not on things—Sellers 1975 • ... despondent, which can apply only to people — Simon 1980 Here is Bryson 1984 discussing the subject: can, may. You have probably heard it a thousand times before, but it bears repeating that can applies to what is possible and may to what is permissible. You can drive your car the wrong way down a oneway street, but you may not (or must not or should not). In spite of the simplicity of the rule, errors abound. Here is William Safire writing in The New York Times on the pronunciation of junta: 'The worst mistake is to mix languages: You cannot say "joonta" and you cannot say "hunta".' But you can—and quite easily. What Safire meant was 'should not' or 'may not' or 'ought not'. • Bryson is clearly unaware that Safire's usage is standard in the trade. He is also unaware that he uses it himself: substitute can only be followed by 'for' —Bryson 1984 (p. 137) See also cannot 2. |
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