Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:25:47 -0800

From: "J.Russell King" jrking[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IX.NETCOM.COM

Subject: Re: may/might distinction



Of course, asking about whether or not your lack of a distinction was

"dialect" or "solecism" was a bit of a joke--the lack of a distinction

seems to be widespread among educated speakers in the English-speaking

world.



I have collected over the past twenty years numerous print

examples from well-educated people of sentences like,

"If he didn't have to run against Anderson as well as Nixon, Hubert

Humphrey may have been elected president of the United States."



No this doesn't sound quite right. Not at all. The third candidate in

that race was Wallace, not Anderson.