We discuss today that word which causes foreigners to run amok with unsheathed dictionaries, slaying ten, which defies precise analysis or job-description, and which carries so much meaning without having any meaning at all. May is the word; not as in the month of Mary, but as in the auxiliary verb which rests in a grammatical limbo between the conditional and subjunctive moods, and which has as many half-nuances as a diamond has points.
The problem about these half nuances is that they elude you the moment you try to put your hands on them. Let us look at two recent outings for the word "may". A court was recently told that a garda "may" need an operation every two years for the rest of his life after twice being rammed by car-thieves. He was awarded £138,000 damages against the state. Another court was told of a trainee prison officer, who "may" need further corrective surgery on her nose which was broken during training. I make no judgment on their cases but ask; wherefore this word, "may"?
Too modest
If the garda "may" need an operation on the nerve endings in his back every two years for the rest of his life to alleviate severe pain, then the award of £138,000 is too modest for words.
For twice, three times, or even ten times that sum I would not swap places with him. Aside from having been rammed, he may (as we say) be in back pain for the rest of his days. Ownership of Kuwait could not compensate for that.
But what if he doesn't need any operations? What if, oh blessed miracle, his back is cured? I don't begrudge him a penny of his £138,00, what with being rammed by high speed vehicles nearly every time he leaves a garda station; and I dare say he can only persuade a fellow garda to accompany him on patrol by providing his companion with an ejector seat. He certainly deserves his money for the terrors and shock he has been through. But surely, it can't be right that having to go to hospital every two years for the rest of his life attracts the same compensation for never having to go again.
And the young prison officer who was awarded £16,000 for a broken nose and who "may" have to have another operation: is it right she be compensated equally, no matter whether "may" either becomes "does" or "does not"? Withal the processes of compensation operating on a comprehensible scale, that scale nonetheless depends on reason of a sort. And that reason departs from all human understanding the moment that weasel word "may" is allowed onto the picture.
Do solicitors instruct their clients to buy properties on contracts with this word "may" appearing all over the place? "The house is fine at the moment but may fall down next year": does a solicitor jump up and down with joy at the open-and-shutness of the case? Or does his face become closed, grey, ruminative? Does he then cough lightly and suggest a conference in the corridor?
No logic
Whatever the outcome of the the mays above may be, another may may be considered possible: the recipient of any compensation award may die soon afterwards, of unrelated causes. Why then may the beneficiaries of the will be able to claim the compensation award? What sort of logic may reside there? Because A (say) may have been hit by a runaway horse and receives £10,000 from the horse's owner, B who may never have seen a horse in his life upon A's death may now receive the £10,000?
The mays of this life close in on us. We all of us may suffer from some terrible accident which may leave us paralysed. Compensation may of course be meaningless; so why may we even bother talking of it? Why may millions of pounds be given to the quadriplegic when as a society and a state it is our duty to mind such people to the maximum, regardless of whether or not some state agency or insurance company may be held liable for compensation? May we conclude that those paralysed through the random workings of nature, felled by lightning or a massive hailstone, may be minded with less care than someone stricken by the slipshod deeds of another?
Help the helpless
May we not insist, as a civilised people, that the helpless are helped with truly extravagant care, not parsimony. And if the helpless die, as one day they may, why may the heirs to the victim of human carelessness be vastly enriched with the unspent compensation of the deceased?
The may-word tells us all of our fears about the future: it is infused with meanings of power, permission and uncertainty. So why should courts in a single sitting be expected to deal with the unpredictable workings of providence? Would it not make more sense for those who are injured and who seek compensation to be awarded small lump sums, with pensions to follow dependent on circumstance? Our garda above may have to have operations every year, in which case, he may be compensated accordingly; though of course no compensation compensates for back injury. May he not be the first to rejoice that he may need no pension at all?
Does it make sense to abandon capital compensation awards? Of course. Will it happen? It may.