237f. Never was there a poor people so purblinded and Puppifi ed, if I may say so ,
as I fi nde them to be (1661 Howell, Twelve several treat [OED])
Parenthetical if I might say so is early, but rare (11), as are other variants (12):
(11) a. I will leaue to a Story of it selfe, yea if I might say so , to many Stories, in
which such infi nite obseruations might bee folded, (1616 Gainsford, The
true exemplary, and remarkable history of the Earle of Tirone [EEBO])
b. As for sedition, for ought that I know, methinks, I should not need Christ, if
I might say so. (1661 Lattimer [1485?– 1555], 27 sermons [EEBO])
(12) a. so he was, if I may be allowed to say so , a Man of good Sense, and as
I believe, of great Learning. (1719 Defoe, The farther adventures of
Robinson Crusoe [ECF])
b. I saw you depart, if I may be permitted to say so , with more regret
than I expressed to you either by my countenance or discourse (1658 La
Calprendède [trans. I.C.], Hymen’s praeludia [EEBO])
c. Am often in very great doubt ( if I may so speak ), that the Goodness &
Wisdom of God, & his thoughts of these, are very rarely met with in the
Paths, which the scantling of Man’s Reason and Judgment walk in; (1652
Anon, The advocate [Lampeter])
Over time, this form has declined in frequency, from its peak in the 1950s,
according to COHA (see Figure 8.2 ). As noted above, the infrequency of
if I may say so may be related to the general loss of may in contemporary
English. Signifi cantly, Leech et al. ( 2009 : 83– 85) observe, it is the permis-
sion and root senses of may (which we see here in if I may say so ) which are
least robust. They suggest that may is becoming primarily an epistemic modal.
They also explore the question of whether might , which shows only a mar-
ginal decline in frequency, is coming to replace may. However, as if I might
say so has always been rare, the (relative) strength of might seems not to be
a factor here.
8.2.3.1 Development of Insubordinated Clauses. As discussed in
Section 4.4.1 , insubordinated clauses are assumed to derive historically from a
full biclausal construction with a subordinate and main clause. Ellipsis of the
main clause occurs, with reanalysis of the subordinate clause and its conven-
tionalization as an independent construction. The original subordinate clause
is thus fully nativized as a main clause and assumes pragmatic meaning (Evans
2007 : 374– 375). How (and why) ellipsis occurs is not fully explained, but
Heine ( 2012 ) sees it as occurring by a process of “cooptation .”^4 No historical
evidence is given to support this postulated development, and scholars admit
that reconstruction of the ellipted (original) main clause most likely depends
4 See Kaltenböck et al. ( 2011 ) on “cooptation” and section 1.5.6.
8.2 If I May/Might Say So