Please may you...

[Madameprof]

I hear people say this as if it's the polite version of "please can you". Surely it's wrong? The polite version of asking someone to do something is "please could you ".

"Please may I " is asking for permission. You can't ask for permission for someone else to do something.

Yesterday I heard a year 1 teacher say "please may you all sit on the carpet". WTF??

'May I' is asking for permission, so IMO 'may you' is wrong. Used to have a supplier at exjob who'd email 'please may you confirm receipt of this <whatever it was>' and I was so annoyed at the grammatical howler that I'd mutter 'no I may not' every time.

I think it’s just another example of people wrongly thinking it’s better or cleverer to say this, without considering the grammatical rules behind it. Like the ‘I/myself’ instead of ‘me’ travesty.

At least they are trying to be polite I suppose.

Grinning at "No I may not" 😀

It's more like the 'x and I' instead of 'x and me' travesty really.

Provided you are speaking Hiberno-English, myself instead of me follows specific rules that don't apply in other dialects.

It's so sad that we have these amazing nuances in can, may, shall, which enable such clarity of communication. Yet today it's all "can I get" and "may you sit down". Argh

I have the same reaction to the overuse of 'hate.' FGS, you're speaking/writing a wonderfully rich, complex , varied and nuanced language, is that the only word you can come up with?

@OchonAgusOchonOh please can you explain
"It's more like the 'x and I' instead of 'x and me' travesty really."??

I would love a simple explanation to that rule!

Pat and I went to dinner. (Correct)
It rained on Pat and I. (Incorrect)
It rained on Pat and me. (Correct)

Am I right?

Yes, that is correct.

The way I taught my dc was to remove Pat from the sentence if you are unsure.

I want to dinner. Pat and I went to dinner.

It rained on me. It rained on Pat and me.

You would not say 'it rained on I' so you would not say'it rained on Pat and I'.

I was always taught that you should be able to drop the 'Pat and...' bit and what was left still made grammatical sense.

So (Pat and) I went to dinner.

It rained on (Pat and) me.

I've always worked on the basis that a request would be "please would you..."

"Please could you...." might provoke an answer of "yes, I could, but I'm not going to."

A headteacher once said, "Don't ask them to do anything because you might get a response you don't want. Tell them what to do."
Therefore, best of all would have been to say to a whole class of other human beings, "Sit down, please." (Yes, ok, George on the back row could still mutter, "No." 😀

True, "May you sit down" was polite, but I am in the camp that thinks it's nonsense.

"Please may I get down from the table" is fine.

"Please may you" is bloody everywhere at the moment. I see it in work emails all the time, and I'm afraid in these days of remote working it makes me picture the other person as a five year old.

Please may I add:

I bought Linda an ice-cream.
I bought myself an ice-cream.

I bought Linda and myself ice-creams.

@upinaballoon - the reflexive 'myself' really winds me up for some irrational reason.

I hope you mean that the incorrect use of the reflexive pronoun winds you up, but that the correct use of it, as in "I bought myself an ice-cream" leaves you calm and happy.

Last week a pleasant-sounding young man, at the other end of the phone, said, "I'll just look at the calendar and see when we can come to yourself."

@upinaballoon - sorry, yes. The awful incorrect use. ☺️