On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:18:32 EDT, IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>The question was "Could you xxxxxx." This is correct as far as the English >that I learned 50+ years ago in my childhood English grammar classes, but not >so far as current, slangy, idiomatic, and au courant English spoken by the >average illiterate American on the street. When I am in line at a fast food >restaurant, I come to a slow boil when I hear someone in front of me say "Can >I have xxx?", and then I am enraged when the person taking his order says >"Yes". As we all know, the person taking the order cannot possibly know whether >or not the person wanting to buy xxx can have it or can't have it. Probably >only the orderer, his doctor, or his personal trainer knows that. And even >if he were to say "May I have xxx?", then the order-taker might say "Yes" but >still should not do anything else until the orderer finally says "Please >give me xxx" or "I would like xxx", which is what I always say when it is my >turn to order. But then I happen to know what "can" [1] and "may" [2] mean >literally, and I have been a literalist all my life. My language literalism has >served me quite well in writing and debugging code, but it has gotten me in >trouble several times with other people who cannot [1] think or converse >literally. > >Bill Fairchild >Plainfield, IL > >[1] "Can I have xxx" means literally "Am I physically capable of having >xxx?" or "Do I know how to have xxx?" > >[2] "May I have xxx" means "Am I permitted to have xxx?" or "Is it possible >for me to have xxx?", and it is not the same as asking for or ordering xxx. > And all this relates to sysplex timers how? Can we _please_ keep the language discussions to computer languages that fit the charter for this list. TIA, Mark -- Mark Zelden Sr. Software and Systems Architect - z/OS Team Lead Zurich North America / Farmers Insurance Group: G-ITO mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] z/OS and OS390 expert at http://searchDataCenter.com/ateExperts/ Systems Programming expert at http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/ Mark's MVS Utilities: http://home.flash.net/~mzelden/mvsutil.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
