Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 29, 2024

Oh Arlo. Some buttons are better left unpushed.

Good for the goose, good for the gander

Maybe I’m late to the party here but I just noticed the 2021 copyright. So these are reruns?

Janis is pumped to get that glass in panel 4

Yes she can and she did.

From the Amer. Herit. Dict. 5th Ed.:

Usage Note: Generations of grammarians and teachers have insisted that can should be used only to express the capacity to do something, and that may must be used to express permission. But children do not use can to ask permission out of a desire to be stubbornly perverse. They have learned it as an idiomatic expression from adults: After you clean your room, you can go outside and play. As part of the spoken language, this use of can is perfectly acceptable. . . .

Arlo, you never learn.

Had never noticed Arlo being so pedantic until recently. (Is that the correct word?)

My fourth grade teacher would do this. “Mr. Larson, can I go to the bathroom?” “I don’t know, can you?”

Bad move.

You can get in trouble. You may keep your mouth shut — if you can.

January 2021 rerun

So, is the moving thing dropped now? Is that over?

Hmmmm!

Arlo, there is a thing as being too persnickety. Be thankful that she asked, and is willing to pick up after you!

Grammar police

Yes, she could, even without permission.

Yeah, not a wise move there Arlo.

Grammar rules out the door at home.

Don’t correct your wife when she’s doing what you should have done. The correct response is “Yes, please. Thank you.”

The main point to me is that Janis is such a sweetheart that she doesn’t smack the jerk Arlo in the head for his grammar policing and still happily waits on him. Must bel true love.

Arlo is lucky that the glass is empty.

The expression on Janis’ face is just plain sweet. She’s not angry. She just has a compulsion to clean.

Yes, she can!

Correcting your mate is as foolish as all the ones in comments sections who feel the driving need to correct people whose statements may be grammatically incorrect, but they still get their point across.

I do that to kids at school. It takes them a while to get it. But I also talk to them about what they say vs what they mean.

Did we do anything when I was gone? No. We could not handle your absence so we mourned the loss all day.

As kids, if we asked to do something using ‘can I’ my dad would always say ‘I don’t know, can you?!’ We eventually learned!

you’re so right, you’re so wrong.

No, he’s sitting down corrected.

Someone pulled that one on me once when I was ushering. Not only was “Can I help you?” technically correct, because he was staring at his ticket, so I was asking whether I could alleviate his situation (finding his seat). I instead just smiled. I wanted to say, “You know, not only was I technically correct, but English is an evolving language, and ‘can I’ has entered into the vernacular.” Nonetheless, I have endeavored to say “May I help you?” as it is more polite to ask permission to be of assistance. I actually usually did; but it sometimes came out the other way. In any event, his snotty reply to someone trying to help was far ruder than anything I did.

I can’t believe she went ahead and took the glass.

There are other ways Janis could have phrased the question: “Are you finished with your glass? If so, please take it to the sink now.” I use to say this to my teens “Do you need my, um, help, to take your empty glass to the kitchen sink?” Talking to toddlers in preschool, “Please take your glass to the sink now.” Lots of ways to address this issue.

“You have the right to remain silent….”

My mother’s response to that question would be “I don’t know if you can or not but you may.” That is, providing she didn’t whap you one for using improper grammar.

I didn’t think this was about Grammer. I read this as Janis wants the glass but Arlo isn’t finished with it. Arlo asks if he may take it (when he is finished with it). Janis then stands there staring at the glass until she gives up and takes it (apparently she CAN take it whether he is done or not).

I am often asked if I am done with my evening glass. I also often have to get another glass out for another drink of water because the one I was drinking from disappeared into the running dishwasher, which still leaves a glass out for tomorrow’s dishwasher run anyway.

Actually, he sits corrected.