"May" or "might"?

[MMI]

May (pres)/might (past) is a modal verb (it modifies the verb it is being used with).

The dictionary says it expresses possibility, permission, a wish or a hope (e.g., may it be so) - Concise OED, 11th edn.

It adds in an explanatory note that both may and might are used interchangeably - I may go and I might go have the same meaning - whereas traditionalists insist that only may would be correct in that sense, while I may have gone would be an incorrect use of the past tense, I might have gone being the correct version.

The "modern" usage supposedly allows for different shades of meaning, but if the way the words are used is controversial, how can the subtle differences be distinguished? Is may more or less permissive than might?

Also, which do you prefer, double quotation marks or single?

[Resist]

This thread tickles me in all the right places.

I'm still ambivalent on how I feel about modern usage, and would argue that I may go and I might go have slightly different, contextual, connotations. Unfortunately, the subtle difference we're both referring to here is probably dying, as dialect is a constantly evolving beast. (Case in point: The sudden new way in which people are using "any more" over the past couple of years in my region of the US; e.g., a single word at the beginnings of sentences, instead of as two words at the end. I hear: Anymore we don't go to Cold Stone after dinner.

Luckily, new grammars and grammatical rules are always bubbling to the surface.

Also, I prefer double quotes, or depending on the author, no quotes at all. Single quotes are, to me, for quotations within dialogue.

[MMI]

Wouldn't it be interesting to try to pin down the difference between those two phrases: I may go and I might go?

If I may go indicates a freedom to choose (it is possible that I shall go, but I have not yet decided) does that mean I might go is used where I have no control over whether I go or not (I will go if circumstances permit)?

Or is it the other way round?

Another possibility is that I may go indicates that I am permitted to go while I might go shows I am able to go.

But isn't that what can is for?

These are shades of meaning that I suggest could have brought about the different usages, but I am only offering them as ideas. My dictionary does not confirm that these differences in meaning - or any other - are conveyed by differentiating may from might in the present tense, and I believe that many modal verbs manage to convey such fine distinctions without pressing the past tense form into the service of the present tense.

When you examine the possibilities I have suggested above, I believe you have to conclude that might in the present tense is incorrect in any sense and may is perfectly able to convey all the subtleties required of it by the speaker without assistance.

[John Tagliaferro]

The only place I am firm on this one as as a directive vs. informative on the speaker's actions.

"Yes, you may go."

vs.

"I might go."

Otherwise, I go with what sounds better within the flow of a larger passage. I may not think of a great example before dawn.