Re: Please!

On Sep 20, 1:43 pm, Peter Moylan <pe...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
aquachimp wrote:
On Sep 19, 1:08 am, Arcadian Rises <Arcadianri...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I've just heard Brian Williams from NBC closing the news with a
dramatic "Please, have a good weekend".
When a greeting is preceeded by "please" it sounds more like a
request, doesn't it?

I would have assumed he was requesting that they have a good weekend.
Does his job depend on their mid-week mood?
But speaking of "please", I'm in Belgium and when someone hands you
something they use the equivalent of "please" as they do do, e.g. a
waiter places something on the table and instead of saying something
like "there you are",  he'll just say "Please" ( in Flemish/Dutch, or
English when dealing with English speaking customers)

I can understand a Belgian saying that, because the "please" is a direct
translation of "s'il vous plaît" of "asjeblief", which happen to be the
standard thing to say when giving something to someone in French or
Flemish, respectively. (I say Flemish, because I suspect that the word
would be "alstublieft" in algemeen nederlands, the echte Dutch
language.

That's correct. It can be an odd thing to see A.U.B. written as an
abbreviation for asjeblief. And that 'clause' is why I referred to the
"please " as being in in Flemish/Dutch.
It doesn't only occur when giving something; "Was everything all right
sir, please?" (or maybe it was intended as "Was everything all right
sir? Please.") was said to me by a waiter yesterday evening.

J J Lodder will no doubt arrive soon to correct me.) As I
understand it, this is a standard convention in a number
of European languages. I've certainly heard it in German and Italian.
I even have a vague memory of hearing "puzhalsta" from a Russian in such
a situation, but that last cannot be trusted because the memory is
indeed vague.

That custom never caught on in English. We don't say "please" when
giving something to someone. Instead, as you point out, we say something
like "here you are". A "please" in this situation would be the mark of
a non-native speaker.

The Robin Williams example is slightly different. It sounds just a
little strange, but it doesn't sound foreign.

It didn't sound all that strange to me. It comes across as an attempt
to, possibly, overlay a false friendliness with an even thicker layer
of it.
Now, had he said something like, "Good evening folks I am wishing you
have a happy weekend. Please." I'm guessing he would sound a tad
foreign.



--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.      http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

.

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