saying 'please' in restaurants

I did a TEDx talk at Sussex University a few months ago, and now the video is on-line. The subject is being polite in the UK and US, and it focuses on British thanking and American complimenting. I'm teaching a new course on Intercultural Communication next term, and I think one of the first things I'll ask them to do is to critique my use of the word culture in that video (did I really use it that much?!). Of course, we can also critique my use of the terms British and American--as many people do when writing to me about the blog. And we will do that in my course too, though I don't do it much here just because I want to get on with the business of discussing the phenomena I want to discuss. (And if you're interested in my courses, here is the door in.)

The main, vain thing I want to say about the video is this: all the lighting on me is from below. You know, like you did with a (BrE) torch/(AmE) flashlight to yourself in order to tell scary stories at (AmE) slumber parties/(BrE) pyjama parties (also AmE pajama party--there is another blog post in this. I will do it next). I don't think I usually look this spooky. Please God, don't let me usually look this spooky.
(But if you want to see me looking spooky, I recommend watching this on YouTube, as the embedded version here cuts off the right side of the video.)




There's a lot more to say about thanking in particular, but what I mention at the beginning of the video, then never talk about at all, is please. There is a lot to say about please. There is a lot to research about please. I'm limiting myself here to talking about saying please when ordering in a restaurant--just because it's the place I notice it (and its absence) the most.

Now, when I first came to this country--and for a while after--I would hear British people claiming that Americans don't say please, and I would bristle. Of course we do! We are trained to add the magic word when we request things. We are nice people! I'm a nice person! And anyone who doesn't think so can have a sock in the eye.

But then I lived here a while and my family and friends started to come over and visit. They'd order food in restaurants and I'd hear how abrupt they sounded, leaving off the please. Then I noticed myself and my English friends at our weekly gossip pizza get-together. If I ordered first, then I'd notice that everyone else had said please and I hadn't. When my brother's family came to visit a few months ago, I couldn't stop myself adding please at the ends of their orders because they just sounded so terrible to me without them. And their orders were always without them. And my brother does not have a rude family.

(My bossy, corrective behavio(u)r was no doubt facilitated by being the parent of a preschooler--and the fact that I'm the big sister. As a parent, I try not to add the absent pleases, but to ask: Could you say that again in a nice way?)

But look, even on Sesame Street, where children are taught lessons about politeness, people order food without saying please. Mr Johnson here says I'd like a bowl of hot alphabet soup (with a bit of politeness marking in the I'd like). He could have instead said I'll have the alphabet soup.



Of course, it's not true that every British person always says please when they order food, but I definitely hear more pleases here. (On my visit to the US in July, I continued to add pleases after my brothers' restaurant orders, mostly in whispers to myself, just because it was driving me crazy.)

So, how can it be that Americans think of themselves as  polite when they fail to extend this common courtesy word?

Part of the story is touched upon in my TEDx talk. American interactions are generally aimed at creating/maintaining a sense of equality among the participants. My reading of what we're doing when we don't say please is that we don't really want to point out that we are making requests in these situations--to do so would be to acknowledge that the customer is in a more 'powerful' or 'statusful' position than the waiter. So instead of thinking of it as telling waiters what to do (here I'm quoting myself from Emphasis Writing's e-bulletin):
Americans regard ordering as providing the waiter with the information he needs to do his job.
On the other hand,
The British say please when ordering food in restaurants because they view the action as a personal request to the waiter.
Please unambiguously marks an utterance as a request (it is an IFID: Illocutionary Force Indicating Device). Other means of softening requests involve making the request less obviously a request. Could you bring me a salad? is literally a question about someone's ability; I'll have the salad is a statement of my intentions; I'd like the salad is a description of my mental state. They give the requestee a plausible way around dealing with the request (e.g. Could you...? Not in these heels; I'd like..., Ooh, so would I. ). Not that they would refuse. But hiding a request in another type of speech act is a way of being polite, and that hiding is kind of cancel(l)ed out if an IFID like please is added to say "Look at me! I'm ASKING YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME!"  

Please thus ends up not feeling right in some American contexts. Ben Trawick-Smith discussed this at his Dialect Blog:
while ‘thank you‘ is still important to civilized discourse, I find that ‘please‘ has almost the opposite effect in American English. It can make a question sound urgent, blunt, and even downright rude.

I'm sure people working in service industries in touristy places will have tales of cross-cultural request behaviour. Please let us know about them!

P.S. I've remembered that I've written about something related, so (please) see also: making suggestions.

P.P.S. (12 September) Various pictures of signs like this are making their way round Facebook. Maybe this is what's needed in the UK, so that tourists learn the lingo without some of the rude interventions described in the comments section!



P.P.P.S. To see all comments for this post, please click on the 'load more' link at the bottom of the comments.

221 comments

  1. There are so many different schools of thought on please and thank you. As a high school teacher, I have found that please and thank you are very much over used.
    Please implies that they are doing me a favor...please pass your papers forward or please be seated. I would rather say you may pass your papers forward or you may be seated. That takes the begging out of my request. The students can choose to do it or not but I am not going to sound like I am begging.
    I reserve my pleases for favors that my students do for me that is not part of their job description as a student. Would you please shut the door or turn on the lights or pass out these papers. Those are genuine favors that deserve a please.
    I also do not expect someone to say to me please grade my paper or please give me a test. That is my job that I am getting paid for.
    I do not believe you should have to feel like you need to say please for someone to do the job they are being paid to do. Why would a waiter be any different that a bus driver; you do not say please let me off at this place. Or how about a librarian; would you ask to please check out a book or a grocery clerk to please ring up the groceries. I am not trying to be rude to people but there are other ways to be polite by asking how their day was and listening and commenting on what they say.
    The same goes for thank you. If I tell a student thank you for turning in a paper, then I am implied that they did me a favor. Instead, I may say great job getting your work completed on time or you did a good job of being team leader for that project and keeping everyone on task. And I smile to show my thanks for them doing what they are supposed to be doing.
    I would not say thank you for to a waiter (but I would leave a good time as a thank you) no more that I would say thank you to a sales person who sold me clothing. I smile and would tell them to have a good day.

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  2. That is interesting, Gina. In my (British) memory, "please" and "thank you" were certainly used by teachers, although they were probably split about 50:50 between those who said "Please sit down" and those who just said "Sit down". Either way, it was a command and we interpreted it as such!

    I was at a family wedding on Saturday, and I noticed, almost without noticing, that people said "Please" to the catering staff as a matter of course: "Please may we have another bottle of red wine - no, make that two bottles - and another bottle of water." To which she confirmed: "Two bottles of red wine and a bottle of water?" and we said "Yes please." Or if she said "I'll bring that right away" as she did once, we promptly said "Oh, thank you!" and then thanked her again when she brought it. Mind you, it is not our custom to say "You're welcome!" when people thank us....

    Meanwhile, I don't know if I've already said this - this conversation is very long and has gone on for some time - but some years ago now my daughter quipped that all you really needed to know how to say in a foreign language was, "Two beers, please!" I repeated this to a friendly waitress in Warsaw, and she said wryly that "Most people don't bother with the please!" I wonder whether the "most people" would be Americans, as certainly in all the European languages I know one would say "Please"....

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  3. Oh, and P.S. Gina, in this country one certainly does say "Please" and "Thank you" to bus drivers, checkout operators, librarians, etc. It's quite normal, when getting off a bus, to say "Thank you, driver!" and in the days when one bought tickets to a destination one would say "Two to XXX, please", or whatever - as, indeed, one still says when buying railway tickets in person from a person (increasingly rare, these days!).

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  4. Something here does not compute.
    If the explanation for Americans' boorish behaviour towards waiters is essentially mean-spiritedness (they don't see why they should say 'please' or 'thank you' to people who are being paid to serve them) then why would those same mean-spirited Americans shower those same waiters with embarassingly huge tips?
    It doesn't make sense.

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  5. Over on the You're welcome thread I've suggested that please in a restaurant context may be no more than a marker signalling 'This is my order'.

    As long as customer and waiter signal their turns as expected, both are comfortable and neither is in danger of losing face. Brits and Americans stick to the script of expected markers. It only starts to feel impolite when somebody strays from the script.

    If I'm right, then I'll have and Can I get are exact equivalents of please in different scripts (although we seem to be gradually adopting American scripts here). They're not informing the waiter or requesting information about availability — any more than please is asking a favour.

    So, as I see it, when you Americans hear us say Steak and chips please, we're not putting on a show of mock courtesy, we're just doing what you do with a different form of words.

    If we were ordering by email, we'd write Order in the Subject box. It's just a handy signal.

    Unfortunately, when we hear you say Steak and chips without please, we feel the absence of the 'This is my order' signal. And if we're not so sympathetic to your culture, we interpret that absence as rudeness.

    [It can work the other way when we don't say You're welcome.]

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  6. Not to jump into the argument at the end of the post, but one part I think might be of interest...

    David Crosbie said:
    • You or I or some other BrE speaker is at the same table as one of those many Americans who feel that please is inappropriate when ordering from a waiter.

    I don't think that if you asked any AmE speaker, that they would say that "Please" is inappropriate when talking to a waiter. It just isn't as implicitly important as it appears to be in BrE.
    A lot of the discussion seems to imply that, but I think that comes from trying to describe something that you have never thought needed explanation.

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  7. OK Biil, ket's re-write the scenario:

    • You or I or some other BrE speaker is at the same table as one of those many Americans who

    INSERT
    don't say please when ordering from a waiter

    • The British observer asks the American speaker why he or she doesn't say please.

    • The American speaker detects a challenge to his or her politeness and over-reacts somewhat, and is thus for the moment feels
    END INSERT


    that please is inappropriate when ordering from a waiter.

    INSERT
    Even though on reflection they would not make such an extreme claim
    END INSERT


    • The British observer asks the American speaker why he or she used that particular tone of voice and wording, and why he or she avoided wording such as please

    • The American speaker replies Well it just seems the polite way to speak. ASSERTION ONE


    I think the argument still stands: that ASSERTION ONE is not a deliberate deception.

    But what drove some AmE-speakers into making the exaggerated implication that you detect?

    A more recent thread on please, please find attached... didn't create the same agitation. I think the explosive factor is not the word please, not the variation in use, which is what this blog displays all the time. The judgement made on the basis of dialect difference is an irritant, but surely not so explosive as we've seen on this thread. The crucial factor I think is that in a discussion of politeness stating a judgement is taken as a criticism and an insult.

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  8. When I worked as a waitress in a small town in America, by and far the most common thing I customers said to me was, "I'll take the X." Sometimes even multiple times. "I'll take the steak, and I'll take that medium-rare. And I'll take the steak fries." "Would you like anything to drink?" "Yes, I'll take a water."

    I'd say customers used "I'll take" at least once in their order about 80% of all interactions. It was intensely irritating to me.

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  9. The July 20, 2016, Washington Post has a story about a cafe in Virginia that charges people extra if they don't say, "Please": "If You Forget to Say ‘Please’ While Ordering Coffee, This Virginia Cafe Will Charge You Extra"

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  10. They've failed to mention that that was completely plagiarized from an Italian place (and possibly others).

    http://vi.sualize.us/un_caffe_per_favore_life_is_good_picture_AEBm.html

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  11. I'd be interested in a 'sorry' post, Lynne. In the UK we often use it to mean 'I beg your pardon' if we haven't heard what someone has said and we want them to repeat it. Of course, there are a multitude of other expressions which also mean 'Please repeat that', such as 'Pardon?' or Excuse me?', and informally 'What?', 'Eh?', or (my favourite) 'Come again?' (orig. AusE, I believe). The one which grates on me is 'Say again' - it sounds extremely rude to me, almost a command/demand, or 'radio speak' (eg pilot to controller).

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  12. Re passive-aggressive: I (British) have only a hazy idea of what this is. I understand this American-sourced concept but I cannot give examples, and I struggle to identify it, or to identify with it even when it is pointed out to me, as in Lynne's ticket queue example. About that example: quiet sighing and tutting I would say was simply mild frustration or annoyance, letting off a bit of steam with the possibly of creating a bond with like-minded fellow-sufferers. But I accept that signs of irritation meant to be detected by the person struggling could well fit the definition. (In that situation, if it's a Brit struggling, please (!) wait for them to look for, or ask for, help before pressing it on them in what they may well view as active-aggression.)

    Lynne, if you're planning to write about Meg's 'I wouldn't mind a cup of tea,' my reading is that it is more what an American would possibly call 'needy' (though I've probably got that wrong too) than passive-aggressive. It is simply a feeler, thrown out there to see if anyone nibbles, and which intentionally leaves open the question of who (if anyone) might make the tea in question. A common answer would be along the lines of 'Well make yourself one then. And make one for me while you're about it'. In this disguised request there is none of the imperative sense that the majority of AME speakers commenting above find in requests with added 'please'. Passive: yes; aggressive: no.

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  13. Oh, how I sympathise with Graham NW, David C and Lynne! Such a long exchange with no resolution! In this comment I try to summarise the positions of the parties, and aim for a statement of why the differences remain, since I can’t resolve them. Because of length, this comment is in two parts. Having read that introduction, you may well consider that you’ve read far enough, but I do believe you may find something useful in my summarisation.

    Graham, using his everyday meaning of politeness, descries different levels of it in different cultures. Graham thinks Lynne and the academics are playing Humpty Dumpty with 'politeness' (and 'solidarity', and 'deference'): “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

    Lynne says Graham can't use his everyday meaning of 'politeness' if he wants to talk about politeness, but must use her specialised one, which is different. Using hers, there are different forms of politeness, with more of one in one culture, more of another in the other. Lynne also implies that Graham shouldn’t use 'courtesy' and 'considerate' as absolutes, since all these words are culturally determined.

    Graham says: but all dictionaries define ‘politeness’ using similar words that mean to me precisely what I understand them to mean. David says dictionaries define subjective words using subjective words and are therefore circular. Lynne says dictionaries define a construct but don't capture how it is operationali{s/z}ed (lovely word!).

    Cue excellent analogy of tea. Graham eventually comes to grips with the analogy but fails to take it where he might: that tea in Britain is hot and tea in America is iced, so what makes tea good in Britain is not necessarily what makes tea good in America. For example, tea in Britain normally needs milk to make it acceptable, whereas milk in American iced tea would be dreadful. For 'milk’ and ‘tea' read 'please’ and ‘politeness'. And possibly for 'lemon’ and ‘tea' read 'friendliness’ and ‘politeness'. Japan would reject both, of course, having spent a long ceremonial time making it with just tea and water. And bowing.

    Graham says theoreticians have used loaded words in their theory of politeness and you can't escape such inherent value judgements. To me it seems perverse of academics to use freighted words for technical concepts and then expect people to ignore the freight and learn the new, neutral definitions – a process that leads to excluding anyone not in the know. OK, academics need precision, but why not start with neutral terms? Lynne and David let this one pass. I think it is implicit that Lynne believes the in-crowd understand the specialised meanings, but to my mind it's not that easy to shake off unconscious bias from the understanding of a lifetime. However, I don't buy Graham's line that the originators of the theory had an agenda and chose terms to further it.

    David says there is American politeness and English politeness and they seem to be different, and uses more technical terms that include the word 'politeness' in the theoretical sense, which isn't the same sense that 'politeness' has in everyday speech. David challenges Graham's absolute statements but is generally emolliently analytical (or possibly analytically emollient).

    And so it goes, round and round. Until it just . . . stops.

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  14. Part 2

    At some point, Graham's avatar becomes the red clenched right fist emblematic of victory and solidarity atop the text SOLIDARITY POLITENESS! A pleasant touch of irony. I hope.

    I have sympathy for all three, and particularly for Graham, whose passion shines through. I do believe he 'loves this blog so much', which is why he keeps fighting because he believes that eventually he will get to a place where he will be content.

    I think Graham's difficulty in proving his point to Lynne and David is that he is relying on a single understanding (ie his) of all the words he uses. All those dictionary definitions that apparently agree with him use value-tinged words that in turn would need defining, and would turn out to be ‘operationali{s/z}ed’ differently in different cultures. Take 'respect' for one, dripping with subjectivity. I believe Graham would assert that Japanese culture places more emphasis on respect than Western culture in general. I would expect Lynne to say that respect is expressed in different forms of behaviour in different cultures, and David to say that what respect means to a Japanese is not the same thing that respect means to a Westerner (and probably that it means half-a-dozen different things to each of them).

    Of course Graham is right when he says Americans are less polite than please-saying Brits, using his working definition of politeness. And the overwhelming majority of American commenters are right when they say that please-saying Brits are ruder than Americans, using their working definition of politeness. And Lynne is right when she says that this is because the American and British forms of politeness – how their concepts are operationalised – are different. And David is right when he says it’s all very subjective and relative, and much more complicated than it looks at first glance.

    My view is that British politeness is formulaic, intended to forestall discomfort and embarrassment. I can do it with my eyes closed. The American politeness outlined by most commenters seems to be designed to preserve face. It sounds like really hard work to me - all that eye contact and smiling just to get a coffee! Puhlease!

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  15. A little strange, maybe, but I first read the blog post, then read all the comments, then made my own comments on the fascinating comments, and only THEN watched the videos. Lynne, your talk is excellent! You get so much more across than is possible in a blog-post-plus-comment-responses, I suppose because typing is so slow relative to talking. I understand all your technical points now (at an overview level; I've not studied the theory apart from this). And I agree with them. In theory. Very (BrE) nice, attractively symmetrical theory that explains a lot.

    What I say next I say not as a Brit who you might expect to have beliefs about British and American politeness, but as a puzzled blog reader who believes he has grasped the essence of the theory underlying this blog post and is now unsure what to believe about American politeness.

    I have a problem: because I have no real recollection of ordering in US restaurants, the only example I have of American solidarity politeness in that context is Mr Johnson. People have remarked that the exchange as a whole is rude, but no one has said the ordering itself is impolite, and Lynne's only comment was that it could have been less polite. So, for all the admirable theory about positive face, I still can't see how the ordering interaction has anything to do with making the waiter, who is clearly subservient to "sir", feel good about himself. ["Oh waiter!" "Yes sir . . . I am your waiter and I am here to serve you. What can I get, hmm?" "Yes, I'd like a bowl of hot alphabet soup" . . . "OK sir! Coming right up"] It seems too one-sided for solidarity. Equality would be more like "What can I get you, bud?" "I'll have the soup. Make it hot!" "Sure".

    Now I feel forced to question whether the theory is rationalising rather than explaining the nature of ordering dialogues that have simply become the norm over the years, trying to put them in a positive light. If analysis according to the theory is correct - that an ordering exchange such as that in the video demonstrates solidarity politeness and pays attention to positive face - the only explanation for me is that the waiter embraces the clear inequality, expects the treatment he receives, feels the social structure to have been reinforced, and is somehow comforted by this. I know many commenters have remarked that the customer/waiter relationship does not involve inferiority, but that is not what I see in the video (nor the common-sense real-life reality). Yes, I know that it's Sesame Street and light-hearted, and I realise that Grover's obsequiousness is something I'd be unlikely to see from a real US waiter, but none of the Americans here saw a need to point that out for the benefit of the non-Americans, so I am assuming that the video isn't that far off: that the lopsidedness is probably overstated, but genuine.

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  16. (Continued)
    If that is on the right track, I can possibly understand something that has puzzled me in many of the comments despite their authors' rationalisation: how an added 'please' could be rude. Is it maybe because it offers the illusory appearance of choice to a minion who, being in an inferior position, does not have the option of refusing, thereby exposing the inequality? If so, I can see why, thinking that way, an American might be uncomfortable offering that illusion of choice to a underling British waiter, because it could force the ordering superior (and possibly the choice-lacking inferior) to face the unevenness of the relationship head on, which would destroy any comfortable thoughts of solidarity.

    In the Tedx talk, Lynne makes the point that Americans deflect compliments to bring things back on an even keel where the parties are equal, because "Our interaction has to be about equality. We all know we're not equals but we have to act like we're equal". Is there a clue in that as to why the otherwise freely-complimenting Americans do not as a rule compliment their waiters - at least while ordering: because the pretence of equality would be laughable?

    If the present system works for Americans then it works, and all the Americans here have said it does, so however it may appear to Brits it does not involve impoliteness or rudeness by American standards. But I cannot but doubt the proffered reasons, both anecdotal rationalisation and application of theory. Though I would genuinely like to be convinced by better evidence: the theory is so seductive.

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  17. I've been re-reading the new comments on here since the last time I visited the page and they're very interesting.

    Another point I've been thinking of is this: in the UK, the word "please" is so important that it can completely transform a request from being very rude to fairly polite (if not very polite).

    An example: in Britain sometimes I might walk into a cafe and simply say something like "Two coffees, please", without saying anything else like "Hello", "Good morning/afternoon", etc. This is usually regarded as being perfectly polite, (although obviously not as polite as it would have been if I said "Hello, I'd like to have two coffees" or something similar with a greeting). But if I'd walked into the cafe and simply said "Two coffees" without anything else, this would be regarded as extremely rude, just about the rudest thing you could say (unless you used swear words, which is very unlikely!) And using a phrase like "May/can I have two coffees?" without the "please" is only slightly better than saying "Two coffees".

    The point is: the one word "please" has the power to completely transform the phrase from being extremely rude to being fairly polite (if not very polite) in a UK context. That's how much of a difference it can make to a three word sentence in my experience.

    Also, other considerations like body language, tone of voice, facial expression, manner/mood, etc, are usually not enough to alter the reaction to the absence or presence of the word "please" in this type of situation. For example, someone could walk into the cafe with a very friendly manner, friendly body language, a nice tone of voice, a lovely smile, but if they still say just "Two coffees", without the "please", it will still be regarded as very rude by most people. Conversely, it's perfectly normal for someone to walk into a cafe with a rather gruff manner, unsmiling, looking annoyed, and as long as they say "Two coffees, please" there won't be a problem. The "please" makes up for everything else, and nothing — or very little — will usually make up for the absence of it.

    Perhaps I've exaggerated the situation in the UK a little (!) but not much.

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  18. I work in food service in the USA. Aside from 'please' or lack thereof, I notice that most of my American customers do not place orders with terms like 'I'll have' or 'I would like'. A majority now say 'I'll do [such and such dish]', or 'I'm gonna do a latte'. This disturbs me greatly; how does one 'do' food and drink?

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  19. BrE (Scot, 60+). Wow! This one still takes a bit of reading second time round. I feel that this whole politeness thing ties in with the “can I get” post”. Since commenting there, I’ve used my wife as an unknowing guinea pig. In general (and cordial) domestic contexts, I estimate that she says please about 65% of the time. The other 35% of the time, please is implied by tone of voice. And that’s part of the problem.
    I’m a Scot, my wife is English, and we sometimes misinterpret each other’s tones of voice. Not often, but it happens., and when it does, rhere is usually a regional cultural difference at play. Lynne’s BH sometimes thinks she’s bossy. She herself sometimes thinks that us family sound abrupt. I’m starting to wonder if tone of voice is something else that doesn’t always translate as intended.
    I have been lucky to have travelled in both the US and Europe (about twice a tear for nearly 30 years). I have never found either Americans or Europeans o be inherently impolite, on top of that, we watch far too much American tv. Yes, some things cause a momentary pause (oREGano, burglarise), but rarely bad manners (unless they are part of the story). I’m not sure I even notice whether or not characters say please. But I still struggle with “can I get”, and I think I’ve worked out why.
    Firstly, it sounds very abrupt, whether or not that’s the intention. Secondly, it’s now widely used by younger Brits, who seem to deliberately copy he abrupt delivery, apparently believing that rudeness was intended, and that’s still cool.

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  20. Funny, this Australian felt the opposite. Making requests of restaurant staff without saying please feels slightly contemptuous to me. Even in a pub I would ask "Could I get two schooners of VB please" or an equivalent softener "Could I get two schooeys of VB mate?". I think it's kind of contextual.

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  21. Indeed! (I was a little boy when this post first appeared; and am reading it only now.)

    This bit in Geoff Dyer came to mind: “when I was a teenager, each new book represented an almost overwhelming addition to what I knew and felt.” That is how I feel, going through all these comments and considerations: overfull!

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The book!

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Abbr.

AmE = American English
BrE = British English
OED = Oxford English Dictionary (online)