"Please may you"

[GurbangulyJones]

Where the heck is this coming from? Is it just me who is hearing this more frequently? "Please may I" is fine of course but what's wrong with "please would you?" or "please could you?"
It doesn't really make sense, I don't think, in that "may" is asking for permission - one could ask in the first or third person for permission but it just doesn't work in the second person.
Feel free to criticise the grammar or punctuation in my post, there's a lot of it and it's late at night but you get the general point I hope. Language evolves etc etc but I just can't quite square this one!

Agreed! I think it comes from people wanting to be especially polite, so a good impulse, but in my dialect it would mean “please would you be allowed to..” so makes no sense and doesn’t work.

Yeeeesssssss!

FML this has been annoying me for years, a girl I worked with (overseas) always said 'may you..'. She even tried to put it in a corporate comms once, so eventually I had to explain.

Exactly as you said - in terms of permissions, the word 'may' shiuld only be followed by 'I'.

And there was me thinking I was all alone out here lol

...said nobody over the age of 6, ever.

If only.

Perhaps it’s connected to the dislike of ‘Can I get…..’ rather than ‘May I have…..’.
I think it’s reminiscent of ‘myself’ ‘yourself’ inappropriately, when people think they’re being extra polite, but it’s not correct.

I think Stacey Dooley does this doesn't she? It does sound very strange.

“Could I get” not “Can I get”… though the “get” is better as “have” for me better still “May I have” not “Can I have” (unless you genuinely don’t know if it’s possible to have). I always assume it’s American English.

Could be worse - at least it's not "please may yourself" 🤪

I'm with you, OP. I think I have heard it from a radio presenter on the 'Today' programme.

May I have a coffee, please? First person. Fine.
May he come over to get the ball back? Third person. Fine.

May you answer the question? Not fine. Does it mean, "I'd be pleased if you would answer the question" or "If we sit here for an hour do you think you might get round to giving me an answer?".

I have never heard anyone say this, ever.

Not yet anyway.

Those who used this around me had English as an additional language - May I? is polite, which is where May you? comes from.

I think this would only be correct in the context of "May you be blessed always" or similar, which isn't a request but an imperative?

Otherwise - I've heard "please may you" a lot from primary school kids including my own. I think they do it to be polite and they are probably not being corrected in school.

I’ve gone looking for this thread because I am SO irritated by a smug colleague who constantly e-mails “please may you send me…”
ARGH!
I reeeeeaaallyyy want to correct her, but it would be terribly rude, so I’ve come on here to rant instead!

I’ve noticed that it’s a frequent usage in women in their 20s. I’m sure they mean to be polite. It reminds me of the wonderful sign I saw on social media recently:

“Do not cycle or run on the grass.

You may knock over the elderly or children”

From what I gathered on TikTok its an American thing, they say "please may I" and we say "please can I." Obviously through social media its been picked up by us in the UK

My partner says this, It drives me potty. I have explained but he is so convinced he is right that I have given up.

From what I gathered on TikTok its an American thing, they say "please may I" and we say "please can I."

Some people might say please can I, but if you're a pedant, it's not correct.

'You certainly can, the question is, may you?'

Or as one of my teachers used to say when someone asked 'please can I...?'
'I don't know, can you?'

'Please may I' is correct if asking for permission to do something.
'Please may you' is never correct.

‘May you live a long time.’
’Long may you be happy together.’

I know this sort of use of may with you is correct but can’t think why.

Because the object in those sentences is not the “you”. It is like saying “God grant that you be happy together” not “Please can you be happy together”

The subject rather

but whyyyyyyyyyyy is it "not correct"?

May is part of a verb that implies the possibility of something, in terms of its likelihood.

Can is part of a verb that implies the possibility of something, in terms of the subject's ability.

Neither actually implies the awarding of permission.

It's just a shibboleth, really. One which has led to this ridiculous situation that the op is complaining about.

@Renamed thank you for explaining.