Okay- maybe you can take one of my pet peeves off the list- or help explain it. It drives me crazy when baristas, clerks, cashiers, what have you greet the next person in a queue with the salutation, "Could I help who's next?" This appears to me to be a compound question, combining "Can I help the next person" with "Who's next?" Is there any proper usage or legitimate lexicography for this? The other one, an issue Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons) is onto as well- people who start responses with the word "so". As in, "What did you have for breakfast?" response: "So...I woke up and was out of eggs...yada, yada..." Help us, Obi Wan....
Sam in Stuart, FL
Welcome to the forum Sam Iam. You ask two questions. The first is unclear. I don't usual hear that expression unless another cashier opens up a new lane. When I'm just the next person in a moving line, it's more like "Hi" or "Welcome" (if anything).
As far as the grammar goes:
Could I help who's next?
Can I help who's next?
May I help who's next?
All of these make sense to me, especially in colloquial situations. I don't see any of them really being a "compound question" without a significant pause between "help" and "who's" (or the insertion of a period or semicolon).
Your second question about starting sentences with "so" was discussed at length in this thread.
I don't recall hearing the "…who's next?" version.
"Could (Can, May) I help whoever's next?" seems a bit smoother to me, although if there's actually a queue I would think that it would be obvious who's next. At, say, a bar, with people jammed up three and four deep it might make more sense. Really good bartenders or baristas have a knack for keeping track of customer order, even in the midst of seeming chaos.
Your 'whoever' reminds of this old thread, in which the 3rd post (Glenn's) explains why 'He eats whatever is sweet' is valid.
'Can I help who's next?' appears to be the same structure, but the 'who' (instead of 'whoever' ) does make it somehow off, no?
It sounds like 'control/decide/choose who' or, yes, a stringing together of 2 questions.
I don't see this one being a problem. Try expanding the contraction, and you get can I help who is next? which is unobjectionable (fussy types might prefer "can I help the person/shopper who is next?", but the shorter form is perfectly grammatical).
I used to feel the same way you do about the construction don't let's be silly! When the Mad Hatter in Disney's Alice in Wonderland says it (a response to using mustard to repair his pocketwatch), it sounds regional, whimsical, archaic or simply "odd" in any number of ways as befitting a Mad Hatter, but filling out the gaps it's revealed as "do not let us be silly", which at most is just a little more formal than most people would say it (probably something along the lines of "let's not be silly").