You may eat any clean bird, ___________?

You may eat any clean bird, ___________?
What kind of question tag goes into the above blank?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sitifan

You may eat any clean bird, __mayn't you_________?
What kind of question tag goes into the above blank?

---

.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whitemoon

.

---

mayn't you?

not a teacher

It is a contraction, as I'm sure you will have guessed, of 'may you not' and is correct English, if a bit archaic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by moniza

mayn't you?
it's strange, never heard.

not a teacher

---

This kind of question tag is called "positive statement with negative tag".
You may eat any clean bird. (positive statement) Therefore we use negative tag and we have to add "not" in 'MAY EAT'.
You may eat any clean bird, may not you? (wrong)
In question tag, we must use short form(contraction). Therefore we must use:
You may eat any clean bird, mayn't you?
Hope you understand very well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bhaisahab

It is a contraction, as I'm sure you will have guessed, of 'may you not' and is correct English, if a bit archaic.

---

:up: - especially the last phrase! I hear 'mayn't you' rarely, and 'may you not' only in stiffly correct language - say an old teacher saying 'we may see... may we not, Binns Minor?', asking for attention by making an example of one of the class.

Most users would reword the whole sentence, so that they could use some other modal in the tag question - 'can't we?' or 'couldn't I?' for example.

b