may/might

May I come in?" (may is present tense)

He asked if he might come in. (might is past tense, so is asked)

In reported speech, the present tense (may) is changed to the past tense (might)

IMO, the above sentence is an example of the uage of 'might' as past tense.

The gathering storm.
Why shouldn't YL be aggressive? Everyone else around here is.

Hi JTT

might - past tense of may: I thought I might find him here.

(Times-Chambers Learners'Dictionary)

Is this dictionary also wrong?

Hi JTT

I produce examples from dictionaries to prove my point. They are authoritative sources. On the other hand, you keep explaining to me and Contrex why we are wrong.

If you had quoted an English authority which says that 'might' is not the past tense of 'may', I would not have to spend so much time digging for the correct information.

You told me that I cannot trust grammar and English usage books, but what the writers say are also what dictionaries say because I often refer to dictionaries, especially the example sentences.

I think what you're saying is based on descriptive English, while what I'm saying is based on prescriptive English.

Hi JTT

I produce examples from dictionaries to prove my point. They are authoritative sources. On the other hand, you keep explaining to me and Contrex why we are wrong.

And notice that Contrex does not explain anything and yet you keep believing this myth.

I trust that your level of English is such that you can see that no one can provide any examples of might as the past tense of may, except for reported speech which has errantly been used as examples of past tense when they are NOT.

When you use a historical past tense as the past tense of a historical present tense, you get ungrammatical examples.

============

A: I can jump 6 feet.

[A jumps]

A: *I could jump 6 feet.*

=====

B: I shall go to London.

[B goes to London]

B: *I should go to London.*

==============

C: I will get up on the table.

[C gets up on the table]

C: *I would get up on the table.*

==================

D: I may buy a TV.

[D buys a TV]

D: *I might buy a TV.*

=====================

{Asterisks (*...*) indicate ungrammatical for the situation}



If you could quote an English authority which says that 'might' is not the present tense of 'may', I would not have spend to much time digging for the correct information.

I've given you the correct information, YL. The test is, "Can you create examples that prove the rule has veracity?" When you see that you cannot, it should give a thinking person, at the least, pause.

Dictionaries can and do make mistakes. It wasn't until 1998 that OED declared the split infinitive rule bogus. Why should it have taken these "authorities" so long?

You told me that I cannot trust grammar and English usage books, but what the writers say are also what dictionaries say because I often refer to dictionaries, especially the example sentences.

You can't trust prescriptive grammar books and usage manuals are pretty much that.

I think what you're saying is based on descriptive English, while I'm saying is based on prescriptive English.

YL, prescriptive English does not describe how language actually works. Prescriptive English is simply a group of no-nothings telling you nothing.

This is prescriptive English in a nutshell.

Quote:

Prescriptive rules are useless without the much more fundamental rules that create the sentences to begin with. These rules are never mentioned in style manuals or school grammars because the authors correctly assume that anyone capable of reading the manuals must already have the rules. No one, not even a valley girl, has to be told not to say [Apples the eat boy] or [Who did you meet John and?] or the vast, vast majority of the trillions of mathematically possible combinations of words.

So when a scientist considers all the high-tech mental machinery needed to arrange words into ordinary sentences, prescriptive rules are, at best, inconsequential little decorations.

The very fact that they have to be drilled shows that they are alien to the natural workings of the language system. One can choose to obsess over prescriptive rules, but they have no more to do with human language than the criteria for judging cats at a cat show have to do with mammalian biology.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

And the prescriptivists themselves.

Quote:

The legislators of "correct English," in fact, are an informal network of copy-editors, dictionary usage panelists, style manual writers, English teachers, essayists, and pundits. Their authority, they claim, comes from their dedication to implementing standards that have served the language well in the past, especially in the prose of its finest writers, and that maximize its clarity, logic, consistency, elegance, precision, stability, and expressive range. William Safire, who writes the weekly column "On Language" for the [New York Times Magazine], calls himself a "language maven," from the Yiddish word meaning expert, and this gives us a convenient label for the entire group.

To whom I say: Maven, shmaven! [Kibbitzers] and [nudniks] is more like it. For here are the remarkable facts. Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since. For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them, spawning identical plaints about the imminent decline of the language century after century. All the best writers in English have been among the flagrant flouters. The rules conform neither to logic nor tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which certain thoughts are not expressible at all. Indeed, most of the "ignorant errors" these rules are supposed to correct display an elegant logic and an acute sensitivity to the grammatical texture of the language, to which the mavens are oblivious.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

Read the whole article. It'll be a real eye opener for you. Then you can get rid of all those usage manuals that are taking up valuable space on your bookshelves.

Why haven't you asked yourself, YL?

Why hasn't Contrex, why haven't the native speakers been rushing to fill these pages with examples? When a rule says you can do such and such then you'd expect to see some such and such's.

more nonsense from JTT. I suspect you have "issues", or Assbergers maybe?

Hi JTT

With due respect to you, I would say I'm able to discuss with native speakers because I make use of grammar and English usage books. I've read them and found that they say the same things although sometimes they differ in a few instances.

However, for the most part, what one book says echoes what the other books say and it also provides new topics not covered by the other books. If you advise me to discard the English books, then it is like telling me to throw away my dictionaries.

Even the most educated have to refer to dictionaries every now and then. Hence, I think I cannot accept your advice.

Best wishes.

Hi JTT

Why should I dump the English books when they give similar information found in dictionaries? Modern dictionaries come with example sentences. If you compare the sentences in the dictionaries with those found in English usage and grammar books, you will find the sentences are grammatically the same.

So the same mistakes are repeated in different publications. What is that supposed to prove, YL. Have you any idea how many places these prescriptions have been published?

I suggest you refer to a good grammar or English usage book and see that what you have learned is found in the books.

Believe me because I often refer to both dictionaries and English books.

Best wishes.