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Mind Your Language | 16 July 2005

A Lexicographer writes

issue 16 July 2005

A recent cartoon in the Los Angeles Times showed a punkish teenager saying to a more conventional youth, ‘I’m bored. Can I shave your head?’ Ho, ho.

But then the paper published a letter from ‘Merrill’ from Nova Scotia saying, ‘Would you please explain why nobody here knows the difference between can and may? In Nova Scotia, our teacher would not let us out of grade three if we didn’t know the difference.’

In reply the paper said, ‘Cartoon creators want their characters to be...

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