A couple weeks ago, I wrote a quick post asking for your opinions on Philip Corbett’s contention that may and might both express possibility, but that might is used when the possibility is less likely. For example, the work in (1a) is more likely to get done than in (1b):
- (1a) If I can distract the kittens, I may be able to get my work done.
(1b) If I can distract the kittens, I might be able to get my work done.
I had never heard this before, and I didn’t find it to be the case in my own usages, so I posed the question to you all, and you didn’t disappoint. Nor did you agree. Three commenters concurred with Corbett about the difference, with may being more probable than might. One felt that the difference was one of involvement, that might suggests the subject is somehow more involved in the action than may. Two thought that the difference was one of formality, but one thought that may was more formal and the other thought it was less. And at least three agreed with me that there wasn’t any clear difference.
I think Bob Hale nailed it in his comment when he wrote
“My usage of “may” and “might” probably doesn’t correspond exactly to your usage of “may” and “might” or to anyone else’s. I don’t think it’s consistent for an individual and it certainly isn’t consistent between individuals.”
It is worth noting that no one felt that might was more probable than may, so maybe there is a grain of truth to Corbett’s contention, but that grain is drowned out by the overwhelming muddle.
Summary: may and might should be regarded as essentially interchangeable, because different people don’t agree on what the difference between them would be.
Motivated Grammar 
17 comments
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August 10, 2009 at 9:46 am
Faldone
Perhaps in the positive the difference between may and might is minor and fluid, but in the negative might not indicates that there is a possibility that something won’t happen but with may not the thing is forbidden.
August 10, 2009 at 5:11 pm
The Ridger
Ah, but that’s the OTHER meaning of may. “It may not rain, you know” has nothing to do with permission. “We may not be able to meet that deadline.”
This use of “may” is just as synonymous with “might”.
August 10, 2009 at 11:52 pm
BobHale
It does sometimes make me wonder how we ever manage to communicate at all. :)
August 11, 2009 at 8:05 am
Faldone
That’s a problem I see with may not. It can be ambiguous. Certainly with many examples you have to work really hard to misinterpret the sentence, but there are others where the wrong meaning seems to be uppermost, at least in my mind. An example: I have occasion in my work to read over some legal documents that include the line “…the contract may not be renewed…” I’m not in a position to suggest that this wording is inappropriate in these cases and maybe there is a legal language convention that governs this usage, but I would go with one of several other wordings that wouldn’t have that ambiguity.
August 11, 2009 at 8:24 am
The Ridger
Thing is: all the modals are ambiguous. They all have at least two meanings (and all the English teachers in the world haven’t managed to eliminate the “permission” meaning for “can I?”).
We manage to spell “cannot / can not” to clear up the additional “do I not know how or am I able to refrain”, but mostly we just live with it. Or pick other words entirely.
August 12, 2009 at 7:41 am
Faldone
In my youth I remember hearing parents and teachers trying to drum that may/can distinction into our heads but also remember hearing those same parents and teachers using “can” for permission among themselves. The only time I ever heard it used “correctly” was in our game “Mother, may I.”
August 13, 2009 at 7:14 am
Edward Vitasek
If “may” and “might” are exchangable, then all these utterances should be equally acceptable:
(a) He may come tomorrow. He might even bring chocolate.
(b) He might come tomorrow. He might even bring chocolate.
(c) He may come tomorrow. He may even bring chocolate.
(d) He might come tomorrow. He may even bring chocolate.
I have ordered the utterances according to my subjective acceptability. I can see myself using (a) and (b). I have trouble seeing myself using (c). I’m certain, I’ll never use (d).
Thoughts?
August 13, 2009 at 5:33 pm
The Ridger
Just because they’re synonymous doesn’t mean their argument structure is the same. Synonyms often can’t be simply plugged into each other’s slot in a sentence.
August 14, 2009 at 9:55 am
Ben
It may be that I will come to regret wading into this discussion, but isn’t one’s personal preference completely beside the point when it comes to this? I might be wrong, but shouldn’t the litmus test be whether a reasonable reader can successfully glean what the author means? And while there are certainly scenarios where a particular may/might formulation may have an “ambiguous” meaning, unless we can say that an average reader might actually be uncertain as to which meaning was intended, I’m not certain that it’s actually ambiguous.
For instance, would the above paragraph’s meaning change at all if I were to substitutes my “mays” for “mights” and vice versa? If not and the only objection to the new paragraph (or the old one) would be for personal preference or in the name of rhetorical style, might I ask if those are really all that important?
August 26, 2009 at 8:09 am
tiffany
kitty racist!!!!!!!!!!
August 28, 2009 at 11:49 am
Gabe
Faldone/The Ridger: I have never understood why the word “may” is ever used in legal contracts, exactly because of the ambiguity you’re discussing. Is there perhaps a single, unambiguous meaning that law students are taught? It seems weird, given the linguistic hoops legal documents jump through to avoid ambiguity with relatively unambiguous words, that anyone would ever use “may”.
Edward: Personally, I see no difference between your four examples. I might be a little biased against (c) just because I think seeing “may” in two sentences in a row sounds overly formal, but all sound just about as well to me. In fact, I’m surprised you wouldn’t use (d). Do you have a theory as to why it sounds bad to you?
Ben: I agree. The differences between “may” and “might” are a matter of personal taste, it would seem, so one can’t count on two reasonable readers having the same usage patterns, and therefore the distinction needs to not be crucial to getting the desired meaning out. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have an opinion and a usage pattern for your own writing/speaking, but only that you shouldn’t rely on others having the same. As a result, the distinction can’t be all that important.
September 8, 2009 at 9:11 am
sonia
they look so cute
September 26, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Macy Armantrout
they are the cutiest things i have ever seen! i would get one of the orange ones, thats my fav. color. where did you get the picture taken? are they all yours?
Macy Armantrout
September 26, 2009 at 2:56 pm
denny armantrout
It is adorable. my daughter is begging to see them.
September 27, 2009 at 5:54 am
Michael Cooperson
But isn’t there a difference in perfect constructions? “I may have known” is something a weaselly defendant might say, but “I might have known!” means “I should have expected that!”
Also, there are historians who distinguish between “Napoleon may have been deranged” (but we can’t be sure) vs. “Napoleon might have invaded India (i.e., was able to) but invaded Egypt instead.”
I do agree that current spoken usage treats the two as interchangeable, but examples such as these suggest that some original distinction might be recoverable.
October 6, 2009 at 8:16 am
Mary Hazelton
The may/ might distinction about degrees of possibility certainly existed, and has been lost. So if you don’t feel it, you are probably younger than me (64). May is neutral (he may, he may not); might puts the likelihood a bit on the negative side. In speech one can stress ‘may to make it more unlikely. Think also of: “Is he likely to pay?” Response: “Well he ‘might (stressed)” – meaning it is unlikely.
Might should also be used in the reported speech version of may (and that seems to have been lost too, which is almost worse, by which I mean it sounds really odd to me).
To lighten the discussion: in South Africa, people are so anxious to be polite and use ‘may’ instead of ‘can’ that they say: “May you now please stand up.” (This is an English-speaker usage, not a second-language speaker usage.) Of course the chances of this usage being ‘lost’ are minimal!
April 24, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Kate
To shed some light on this conversation (although i’m a bit late), I thought it might(!) be useful to discuss the history of the verb.
First off, the social climate during the Old English period is important. The speakers had reduced their tense-system to two tenses (past, and not past), which was most likely due to English being the minority language at the time.
But, to mix socio-linguistics with grammar, the verb “may” is a preterite-present verb, which means that it was originally a strong verb (the inner vowel changed to indicate tense, like “swim, swam, swum”) but the preterite (“past”) took on a present meaning. (due to the social climate, the speakers had to improvise due to their two-tense system.) This caused a new “weak” preterite (add a dental suffix to indicate tense: “walk–> walked”) to be formed.
So, the verb was “magan” which meant “to be able to do something”. More or less. The third person singular present tense was “maeg” (i.e. “may”) and the plural present was “magon.” This form used to be the past form but became the present form. So, due to the lack of a “past” tense, a weak dental preterite formed “meahte” (might). Due to all of these switching tenses, over time, the tense became lost, which in turn produced the “modal” verbs.
Same phenomenon with “Sculon” (“to be obliged to do something”), with the verb “sceal” (“shall”), “sculon”, and “sceolde” (“should”, the dental preterite).
This is why these verbs do not have a “tense” and create confusion to this day.