“Some people may/ might/ will consider that snide”

Question

In a talk show with the topic: How to discover your authentic self – at any age. The speaker starts her speech like this:

I am a late bloomer. In fact, a friend of mine you may have heard of – Chris Rock – he once called me the most late-blooming mofo he’d ever met. Now, some people might consider that snide, but I revel in it. I’m 55, and I’m here in this curvy body as someone who has done the work, lived the life walked the walk in these very high heels.

(1) some people might consider that snide,.

a. Can I use "may" instead of "might" here with the same meaning?

b. Can I use "will" here to show that I am certain that people will consider that snide.?

Answer 1

Yes, on both questions.

"May" is a strange word, since it also is used for permission, and you have to understand the meaning from context. But here it would certainly be understood as having the same meaning as "might".

"Will" indicates greater certainty.

Answer 2

James K’s answer is valid for many English speakers, but it is not universal. May and might are quite close in meaning, and many use them interchangeably, but they remain distinct to many speakers as well (myself included), with might being primarily the past tense of may, both in terms of morphological form and meaning.

With modal verbs such as may/might, the past tense is also used in hypothetical (‘irreal’, counterfactual) conditionals, and semantically it carries the same shades of being ‘remote’ and more ‘distant’ from the speaker that such conditionals normally do. That is, compared to the present tense, the past tense increases the uncertainty implied by the speaker.

This difference between past and present also goes for would, which you added to the mix in a comment: may/might is one present/past pair, will/would is also a present/past pair.

May/might indicates a potential outcome – there is a possibility of something occurring. May indicates a stronger likelihood than might.

Will/would indicates something occurring in the future, which is by definition unknown and therefore somewhat hypothetical. Will indicates stronger certainty of this hypothetical than would.

The difference within each pair is small, but it is there (except to those who treat may and might as completely synonymous). It’s not easy to describe these sorts of minute differences in words without using the same words and differences in the explanations, but the following is an attempt to give some hypotheticals where each would realistically apply:

Now, some people may consider that snide, but I revel in it.
→ If you ask random people if they think it’s snide, there’s a strong likelihood that some will say yes

Now, some people might consider that snide, but I revel in it.
→ If you were to ask random people if they think it’s snide, there’s some likelihood that some would say yes

Now, some people will consider that snide, but I revel in it.
→ If you repeat it to random people, some of them will definitely find it snide (without being specifically asked)

Now, some people would consider that snide, but I revel in it.
→ If you were to hypothetically repeat it to random people, some of them would definitely find it snide (without being specifically asked)

Answer 3

I would consider may and might nearly interchangeable if we are talking about how people possibly feel in the future. Another word that would work here is “some people could,” which is more likely than may but less certain than will or would (and even less emphatically certain than shall). Both “may well feel” and “might well feel” imply that they very likely do feel that way, and that they would be justified in feeling that way, but it’s still not certain.

However, if we are talking about the past, I think may and might are more distinct. To me, “may have felt” means that we are not certain whether or not someone felt that way in the past. The way I use it, especially in writing, “might have felt” is a counterfactual, and we are talking about a scenario that did not happen. The phrase “could have felt” can mean either. However, people often use these terms more loosely than that, and I’ll understand them.

When we’re talking about the present, it gets a bit more muddled. I use do instead of will when talking about the present. The word may still implies that it’s unknown whether they do or don’t. The words I would use for a hypothetical statement are might or could, but it doesn’t feel like an error to use those the same way as may (unlike with may have/might have).

So, we’ve covered statements about the future, like you asked about. If I say, in the present tense:

They didn’t think so the last time I talked to them, but they [might/may/could/may well/would/do] feel that way now.

There’s no if clause nearby to make any of these verbs contingent. Might implies that they probably don’t, could implies they probably do, and may is in between. If I say may well, I’m implying it’s almost certain, and would means I am certain of it, but still implies I have not confirmed it. If I say do, it’s a statement of fact. You cannot use will in this context.

Talking about the past:

They don’t feel that way, but in the past, they [may have/could have/may well have/would have].

In this context, many native speakers would also use “they might have,” but that sounds wrong to me, and I would only use might have , when writing or speaking carefully, in a sentence like, “... but under different circumstances, they might have.”