May be or maybe

Which to use and when?

Below is a transcript of the video.

May be as two words or maybe as one word. Which should you use and when?

MAY BE AS TWO WORDS

When we use may be as two words, the word may is what’s known as a modal verb. In other words it modifies another verb or action word. In this case the verb to be.

Modal verbs express possibility. For example, if we say;

‘David is in the kitchen’, we are certain David is in the kitchen.

But if we add may be, as in ‘David may be in the kitchen’, we express the possibility David is in the kitchen but just the possibility. And also the possibility that he’s not.

Here, may be works like other modal verbs that you might be able to think of. For example:

‘David could be in the kitchen.’

‘David might be in the kitchen.’

‘David must be in the kitchen.’

‘David should be in the kitchen.’

All these express different degrees of possibility that David is in the kitchen.

So that’s may be as two words. What about maybe as a single word?

MAYBE AS ONE WORD

Maybe as one word is an adverb. It describes an action word and it does a similar job to may be. So for instance, instead of saying,

‘David may be in the kitchen’

We can also say;

‘Maybe David is in the kitchen.’

Here, maybe as one word is doing a similar job to the word perhaps. So we could just as easily say:

‘Perhaps David is in the kitchen.’

In fact maybe is a more in formal or colloquial way of saying perhaps.

And this gives us an easy way to remember the difference between may be and maybe.

If you’re not sure whether to use one word or two, just substitute the word perhaps and see if it works.

If it does, use maybe as a single word. If not, use may be as two words.

For example, the maybe in this sentence is wrong:

‘It maybe a good idea to subscribe to Clare’s channel’

We can tell it’s wrong because if we substitute with the word perhaps we get:

‘It perhaps a good idea to subscribe to Clare’s channel’

That really doesn’t sound right, does it? There’s obviously something missing. And that tells us that we need to use may be as two words.

‘It may be a good idea’ with two words does work.

In contrast, in the sentence ‘Maybe I should subscribe to Clare’s channel?’, we can  substitute maybe with perhaps and the sentence still makes sense: ‘Perhaps I should subscribe to Clare’s channel?’

So remember: to work out if maybe should be a single word, simply substitute it with the word perhaps and if it works you can’t go wrong.

For more proofreading advice, enrol in the full online course, Proofread Like a Pro, available at the Doris and Bertie Writing School.

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