This is another thorn in the flesh of a lot of my students. Let’s bury it once and for all:
Can applies to what is possible and may to what is permissible.
You can drive your car the wrong way down a one-way street, but you may not.
Whenever someone says to you that
You can’t talk to me like that.
You should reply:
But I can, and quite easily.
What was meant, though, was that you may not or should not or ought not.
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