On 2012-05-16 18:53, Peter Saint-Andre wrote: > On 5/16/12 9:58 AM, Sam Hartman wrote: ... >> I'll note that in my normal reading mode I do not distinguish case, >> but even so I find the ability to use may and should in RFC text without >> the 2119 implications valuable. Agreed. But as a gen-art reviewer, I have several times had to ask authors whether a particular lower case "may" was intended to be normative or normal English. Authors must be fastidious about this. > Your mileage may (or is that MAY?) vary, but to forestall confusion I've > settled on the practice of using "can" and "might" instead of lowercase > "may", "ought to" and "is suggested to" instead of lowercase "should", > and "needs to" or "has to" instead of lowercase "must" (etc.). I'm not > saying that anyone else SHOULD or MUST use that convention, but you > might consider it in your own spec-writing. It is indeed very important not to use "may" when it's ambiguous. "It may rain today" is fine; "you may leave now" is not (I can think of three different meanings). In RFC2119-talk, "you MAY leave now" only has one meaning. Brian