102
"Poor Timing"
August 09, 2011
I wish I had been smarter as a kid. I would hypothosize that it isn't an uncommon wish. I think there has been a time in everyone's life when they were little and asked if they could do something, like have a soda. And their parents would inform them that the proper way to request permission would be to ask if they may. As a child, I had always assumed that this difference was of relatively great significance in speaking properly, much like the difference between "am not" and "ain't"--a word that I recall embracing as a child merely for the fact that it existed, but now dread as an adult and like to pretend that the word was never actually a real thing.
Like my realization of how awful the word "ain't" is, I've come to decide that the difference between "can" and "may" when asking permission is, for the most part, pretty trivial. While the "can" approach leaves a bit more room for interpretation contextually, both forms are still dependent on receiving a yes or no answer. Imagine, for a moment, that you are the child in the aforementioned example, and that you inform your parent that you desire a soda. Can you have one? Yes, as long as your parent allows it. May you have one? Yes, as long as your parent allows it.
So yes, I wish I had been smarter as a kid to realize this, instead of blindly accepting what I was told. This seed of proper speaking that had been planted in my head as a child has come to mature as an anger tree.
In other news, I'd like to once again thank everyone who has reached out to me in the past few days. I really do like hearing from you guys, and as anyone who has sent me an email will tell you, I do take the time to read them and respond to them. I'd also like to thank anyone who spread word of my little comic I've got going on here; the Facebook page for Nuclear Delight has seen a pretty dramatic increase in fans over the past week, and I really couldn't be more excited about that. So thank you, fans, for being a bunch of really neato people.
Like my realization of how awful the word "ain't" is, I've come to decide that the difference between "can" and "may" when asking permission is, for the most part, pretty trivial. While the "can" approach leaves a bit more room for interpretation contextually, both forms are still dependent on receiving a yes or no answer. Imagine, for a moment, that you are the child in the aforementioned example, and that you inform your parent that you desire a soda. Can you have one? Yes, as long as your parent allows it. May you have one? Yes, as long as your parent allows it.
So yes, I wish I had been smarter as a kid to realize this, instead of blindly accepting what I was told. This seed of proper speaking that had been planted in my head as a child has come to mature as an anger tree.
In other news, I'd like to once again thank everyone who has reached out to me in the past few days. I really do like hearing from you guys, and as anyone who has sent me an email will tell you, I do take the time to read them and respond to them. I'd also like to thank anyone who spread word of my little comic I've got going on here; the Facebook page for Nuclear Delight has seen a pretty dramatic increase in fans over the past week, and I really couldn't be more excited about that. So thank you, fans, for being a bunch of really neato people.
