THE GRAMMAR NAZIS HAVE ARRIVED!

So, I'm at work this morning, and listening to the radio. One of the two hosts is talking about a waitress correcting his grammar at a restaurant, and apparently this upset him so much that he left a crappy tip. He felt bad about it and intends to rectify his mistake, but...

He wasn't actually wrong. Nobody appears to have pointed it out, he himself didn't seem to realize it, but from a grammatical and contextual viewpoint, I believe that he was correct. The conversation apparently went as follows;

Radio Host: Can I have a diet coke, please?

Waitress: Yes, you may have a diet coke.

The emphasis is not mine. Now, the difference between 'can' and 'may' is often neglected these days, as they are virtually interchangeable and only people who actually care about grammar make the distinction. They usually try to drill it into everyone around them in an incredibly condescending manner.

Now, the key here is this; Can he have a diet coke? We don't know. Do they carry Pepsi instead of Coke? Do they have diet drinks? The use of can in this instance appears to be completely correct. May would also have worked, contextually, but what he said was in no way incorrect. The sentence implies 'Do you have diet Coke?' although contextually that phrase is probably concluded with 'and if so, may I have some?'

So, let that be a lesson to all of the would-be Grammar Nazis out there. Before you correct someone, please make sure that you're right.

To everyone else- sorry that this is probably only of interest to me.

Signing off!
-Mei