Show Me the Manual!

Mary wrote recently to ask whether "May you" is correct, as in "May you please get me a piece of paper?" Mary's daughter's teacher insists the children say "May you please" rather than "May I please have."

 

Michael wrote today encouraging (almost haranguing) me to tell readers they must not begin a sentence with a conjunction. Apparently, he believes a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence is a dose of poison to the English language.

 

To Michael and to Mary's daughter's teacher I say:

 

Show me the manual!

 

Who besides that teacher believes "May you" is correct and "May I" is wrong? Who besides Michael believes conjunctions such as and and but are wrong at the beginning of a sentence in standard business writing?

 

Show me the manual. Where are the highly regarded style guides that support their positions? The Chicago Manual of Style? The Gregg Reference Manual? Garner's Modern American Usage? The Associated Press Stylebook? The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications? Which ones?

 

I know Michael, who referred to himself as "DR," had strong feelings about his view. He used all-capital letters for these words in his message: MORE, NEVER, WANT, PROPERLY, PLEASE, DEATH ("of entire languages"), ESSENTIAL, NOT, CORRECT, CANNOT, START. But passion is not enough. (There! I had the nerve to start a sentence with a conjunction when talking about him.) One also has to have business language experts on one's side.

 

In the movie Jerry Maguire, the athlete played by Cuba Gooding Jr. shouts "Show me the money!" He won't regain faith in Jerry, his agent, unless he has evidence of the money coming in.

 

I say, "Show me the manual!" and I hope you will too. Do not take people's strongly felt positions about language on faith. And let's not let them boss us around on our language playground unless they have true authority to do so.

 

Yes, I just started another sentence with a conjunction. Do you feel the language dying? No, neither do I.