Stephen Buck wants to explain to a non-native English speaker why the following question is not possible in standard English:

May you do this for me?”

The modal verb may has many uses. The OED entry gives 26 numbered definitions with numerous sub-sections. One of the definitions is this one:

may: Expressing permission or sanction: be allowed (to do something) by authority, law, rule, morality, reason, etc. Now somewhat rare exc. (Brit.) in asking and granting permission

In standard English, when may implies permission, it is used in the asking or granting of it:

May I use the car tonight?
I may not have a Facebook account; my parents have forbidden it.
You may go to the zoo with us.

While it is possible to use may to ask for permission or to grant permission, we use will or can when we want to ask someone to do something for us:

May I use your telephone?
You may stay out until 10 p.m.

BUT

Will you do this for me?
Can you do this for me?

We use will when we know that what we’re asking is within the power of the person being asked:

Will you hold the door while I unload?

We use can when there is some doubt that the person is able/has permission to do what is asked:

Can you authorize this payment?
Can you help me move this piano?

Even speakers who have had the misfortune of never studying Coleridge’s long poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) are acquainted with the figurative meaning of the word albatross: “A source or mark of misfortune, guilt, etc., from which one cannot (easily) be free; a burden or encumbrance.”

Is Sarah Palin becoming an albatross around the neck of John McCain?

Brown vs. Coakley Shows Obama Has Become a Political Albatross

Ever since you’ve married me, Douglas, you’ve treated me like an albatross.

Sleep has been the albatross around the neck of my parenting life for the past six years.

Is Intellect an Albatross?

albatross syndrome: when faith has been killed and the believer must now wear it as a dead albatross

An albatross is a large seabird. In sailor lore, the albatross is considered to be lucky. In Coleridge’s poem, a thoughtless sailor shoots an albatross with his crossbow. The dead bird falls onto the deck. Shortly afterwards, the ship is becalmed and the crew believe that their predicament has been caused by the killing of the albatross. To distance themselves from the act, they tie the dead bird around the neck of the man who killed it:

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks 

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross,
the Albatross 

About my neck was hung.”

The word albatross came into English in the 16th century as “alcatras,” from Spanish and Portuguese words meaning “pelican”: alcatraz. The Spanish word probably came from Arabic al-qatras, “sea eagle.”

Since English already had the word pelican, the new borrowing came to be applied to different white birds. Eventually the spelling changed to albatross, influenced by Latin albus, “white.”

The word pelican can be found in Old English, although the word didn’t take on the meaning of a sea bird until Middle English. Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay got its name from the pelicans that once roosted there. A Spaniard, Manuel de Ayala, charted San Francisco Bay in 1775. He named the island La Isla de los Alcatraces, “The Island of the Pelicans.”

The plural of albatross is albatrosses (ugh) or albatross.

In golf, an “albatross” is a score of three under par on a hole, or a hole played in three under par

As you probably remember, a couple of weeks ago we launched our first book (in digital format). The title is: “100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid: A practical guide to 100 common mistakes of spelling, usage, grammar, and punctuation.”

It came out with a promotional price of $9.99, and after one week it went up to $19.99. Some readers emailed us saying that they missed the discount window, asking if we could bring the promotional price back.

Guess what? We just did. The price is back to $9.99, and we’ll probably keep it there until we sell at least 1000 copies.

So far only one person asked for a refund as well, so the buyers must be liking the content of the book!

What about you, what are you waiting for to get your copy? Click here to visit the book page where you’ll get all the details and be able to order it.

Already bought the book? Send us your testimonial!

If you already purchased the book and liked it, you can send us your testimonial. We’ll feature it, along with your name (and website if you have one) in a future post. You can email it to daniel@dailywritingtips.com.

Some comments I received on the post about the forms of the irregular verb “drink” indicate that not everyone is clear as to how participles are used to form verb tenses that use the helping verbs “has, have” and “had.” Here’s a review.

Participles are verb forms, but they are incomplete. In order to function as “real” verbs, they must be used with helping verbs.

English has two participles: the present participle and the past participle.

The present participle always ends in -ing: jumping, skiing, writing, drinking, sighing, etc.

The past participle usually ends in -ed, as in called, climbed, interrogated, and studied. Many verbs, however, have past participles that do not end in -ed.

Some, for example, end in -en:
write/wrote/(have) written
bite/bit/(have) bitten
take/took/(have) taken

Some end in -t:
mean/meant/(have) meant
creep/crept/(have) crept
sleep/slept/(have) slept

Many irregular verbs, like drink, have distinctive past participle forms:
drink/drank/(have) drunk
go/went/(have) gone
am-is/was/(have) been
slay/slew/(have) slain

Participles have numerous uses, but right now I’m just looking at how they are used to form the following verb tenses:

present perfect
past perfect
present perfect progressive
past perfect progressive

Present Perfect
The present perfect tense is used to describe
a) an action that happened at an indefinite time in the past
b) an action that that began in the past and continues in the present

The helping verbs used with the past participle to form the present perfect tense are has and have:

The House of Windsor has ruled England since 1917.
My sister has tried every kind of shampoo on the market.
We have written to them numerous times without receiving an answer.

Past Perfect Tense
The past perfect tense is used to describe an action that took place in the past before another past action. The helping verb used with the past participle to form the past perfect is had:

Before reinforcements arrived, the enemy had captured most of the men.

Present Perfect Progressive
The present perfect progressive describes an action that began in the past, continues in the present, and may continue into the future. The present participle is used with the helping verbs has been and have been to form the present perfect progressive:

I have been thinking about going to France one more time.
Charlie has been trying to make the team for two years now.
We have been sitting in the park for hours.
The teachers have been meeting after school to plan the new schedules.

Past Perfect Progressive
The past perfect progressive describes a past, ongoing action that was completed before some other past action. The present participle is used with the helping verbs had been to form the past perfect progressive:

When the accident occurred, she had been talking on her cell phone.

Welcome to another edition of the Writing Clinic. This time we have an essay about a trip that one of our readers sent us. If you want to submit a piece for this column, please email it to daniel@dailywritingtips.com.

Before

This trip was anticipated but when it really happened it seemed more sudden then planned. I picked a small college bag, small as compare to the bigger bags that we usually carry to a place out of one’s state. The stay was planned for one night and 2 full days. So eight of us pack with plans not sure, with hotels not booked and no clue where we would go.

Well, some of the best trips are the ones unplanned. Our bus takes us to Panjam. From here we board another bus that drops us to Calangut, one of the most famous beaches in Goa. We land in the morning and with help from friends who spent a week here, we got in touch with Vincy, a name most commonly found in Goa. We rent a descent place for a modest 600 a night. 4 housed in each. We settle for a while, and then run to the beach which is only a quick walk away.

The beach is beautiful, I have loved the beauty a beach showcases, absolute power, gigantic in nature, yet so earnestly and repeatedly doing its job. We get wet, jump, catch some, drop many, push and pull, fight, run and hardly swim. We are tempted to try the water sports but delay the proceedings.

After

This trip was anticipated. When it really took place though, it seemed more sudden than planned. I chose a small college bag to carry with me (small compared to the bags I usually carry out of state). The stay was planned for one night and two full days. Eight of us packed our belongings with no hotel accommodations and no plans. We were completely clueless as to where we would go.

To our benefit, however, was the well-known fact that many of the best trips are often unplanned.

Our bus took us to Panjim. We boarded another bus that took us to Calangute, one of the most famous beaches in Goa. We arrived in the morning. With help from friends who had already spent a week there, we got in touch with Vincy who helped us rent two decent rooms for a modest 600 rupees per room per night. Each room housed four people.

After we settled in, we ran to the beach, which was only a quick walk away. 

The beach was beautiful! I love the beauty it showcases – absolute power, gigantic and limitless, yet earnestly and repeatedly doing its job. We got wet, played, pushed and pulled, and fought. We were tempted to try the water sports the beach offered but decided to put those off for later.

Comments from the Editor

The original had numerous run-on sentences. We broke many apart into two or more sentences, improving the flow of the piece.

Secondly, we also spotted some tense confusion (i.e., sentences combining both the past and present tense). We standardized those.

Finally, the names of the cities and other small details (e.g., 4 instead of four) were corrected.

The Writing Clinic column is a collaboration between our blog and Gramlee.com, a company that provides grammar checks, proofreading and copy editing services.