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Re: Justifying active tense and second person singular?
Subject:Re: Justifying active tense and second person singular? From:Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com> To:BlaineBachman -at- bia -dot- gov Date:Wed, 05 Jan 2000 09:26:43 -0600
Love it!
One time my daughter made the grammatical mistake of saying, "can I" instead of
"may I" while speaking to a clerk in a retail store. The clerk, a girl about my
daughter's age, grinned, and retorted with the classic, "I don't know...CAN
you?"
We all had a great laugh - including my daughter.
Jo
BlaineBachman -at- bia -dot- gov wrote:
> P.S. In my personal vendetta against impersonal speech, I've been known to
> good-naturedly hassle store cashiers when writing a check:
>
> Cashier: "I need a driver's license."
> Me: "You don't have one yet? How old are you?"
> Cashier: "No, I need to see one!"
> Me: "Oh. Mine, or will someone else's do?"
>
> -bb