In my childhood a frequent adult response to a question such as ‘Can I get down now … go out to play … have a biscuit’ was ‘Well you can, but you may not.’
Meaning that you may be physically capable of doing such a thing, but it would not be polite to leave the table before everyone else has finished, or good for your school marks to neglect your homework, or you will ruin your appetite for the dinner which your mother has gone to so much trouble to cook. So permission denied.
Or it was just a tease to make you think about the use of language.
I was pondering how this distinction could be applied to the results of medical research.
Smoking can cause lung cancer. Bacon sandwiches can cause bowel cancer. Cream cakes can make you fat.
So why don’t we refuse to allow, deny permission to, the tobacco, meat preservatives & animal fats to carry on producing these effects, instead of concluding that it is we who may not smoke, or eat bacon sandwiches & cream cakes.
Postscript:
It may have been Voltaire who said ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’, but it has been the English, not the French, who have been most assiduous in heeding his advice.’
Times leader 24 May 2011.
So did Voltaire say it or was it someone else?
