My boss, who loves reprimanding me, corrected me as I was transferring a call to him today. As I was seeing if he was available to talk to one of our professors he said, "it is, 'May I ask who's calling?'; not, 'Who is this?'". I felt like I had erred for about a second until I analyzed why it is I ask, "who is this?".

I ask this "informal" way, because the answer to the question, "May I ask who's calling?" is, "Yes, you may". Now, I know most English speakers do not infer that from this question, but that is how I perceive it, and I really don't feel like talking to the plethora of people the call more than I need to-- not to mention I feel that it is more correct and to the point for the information I want (as in, I don't care if I have their permission to ask who's calling, because I'm asking them regardless).

>>So my question to you all is this: Which way do you ask for a person's name? Or do you have a different method?

Regardless, it is yet another thing my boss has misconstrued, which is very annoying. I hate not being able to explain myself (he is not the type of person you could do that to without risking some type of alienation).