I'm a stupid foreigner (surfaces may have become slippery due to the adverse weather conditions)

[pez]

Liz, I read what you told me about this morning. Oh my God. XD

It's still really hard to get into Olive Riley's blog, probably because of the heavy traffic.


Not too long ago I was talking with Liz about how people use English. Personally I can't stand people who speak like this:

"People such as yourselves..."

"Yourselves"? What the bloody hell? While in some cases, using "yourself" and "myself" etc is perfectly reasonable, it seems like people are getting too scared of using the word "you". Is it too direct? Is it because you don't know when to use "me" and when to use "I", that you started using "myself", and so to balance things out you start to use "yourself" as well?

Oh, I'm clearly aware sometimes it's a style choice. It might even hint class differences. But some people utter these things when they're clearly just confused.

"I would like to thank you..."

Okay, so what's this business about "would like to"? If you're going to thank someone, then bloody well thank them. Doesn't "would like to" imply "I want to but I can't", or "if I could meet anyone, I would like to meet...", that sort of thing?

So what's wrong with "Thank you for..." or "I thank you"?

Okay, maybe that just sounds nicer or something. I don't know, I looked up WOULD in a dictionary and it's not helping. And then I read a report on a technical check (which means we tell them what they got wrong and what they should do) and I get monsters like this:

"[company] would suggest that the issue of the impact of ... needs to be considered."

Now, maybe I'm just a stupid foreigner. Just what is the WOULD doing there? In fact, why are we /suggesting/? The issue of the impact needs to be considered. We're telling them this, as a fact. So WTH?

Don't get me started on "I hereby enclose..." and "I endeavour to answer your queries upon my return." orz SOMEBODY, SHOOT THESE PEOPLE.

And then somebody is going to tell me, "just accept it, that's how English is done. It's like how people are ON the train when they're actually IN the train. DON'T QUESTION IT." ;;

Comments

[elyndys.livejournal.com]

I was reading about ーれる endings yesterday though and the only function they have is to make life more difficult for foreigners in shops and restaurants make words more polite. I finally realised why keigo was so difficult to understand! XD

I guess things like politeness are a lot to do with ingrained social expectation, so if you *think* it sounds more sincere, then... it does. As long as everyone's on the same page! XD I sometimes say "I want to say thank you" when I really want to draw attention to the fact that I'm very grateful to someone, because "Thank you" by itself is so throwaway. By itself it would just sound clipped, like a formality. I think the same is true with "please" - if you're really asking someone nicely to do something, you say "would you mind...?" or "could you/I...?" and sometimes don't say please at all. (Which of course, like you say, leads to jokers saying "Yes, I could." but not doing anything. XD)

[giving-ground.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean, I say "thank you"/"thanks" pretty often but when I say it it's quite hard to shake the feeling that I'm being overly brief and that it sounds as though I don't really mean it. "Please" also sounds rather... terse, I suppose, and too demanding in a lot of situations.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

It's probably more important online than offline? In RL, body language and tone of voice can express so much - you can be saying "Thank you." rather than just "Thank you." and because you've put the emphasis on your tone and you have sparkly eyes, they know how grateful you are. When written, there needs to be more effort to express your thankfulness.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

XD I suppose there's definitely some cultural difference going on, as well as personality thing (I like things more straight-forward in general).

Usually I have no problems with "would you mind" or "could you please" etc - I always see it as asking someone for help/favour, and those phrases are good for asking~

[elyndys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I usually like things to be straightforward too, I hate when people say things and mean another (I can't deal with ironic songs, for example XD). My pet hate is those ridiculous metaphors like "a sea-change". Why can't it just be a change, or a big change?! That's the sort of thing that gets me personally, lol!

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

"A sea-change"? Wow, I've never heard of that... >_>

Sometimes it can be funny, though.

"Describe the colour of your car."
"Cranberry."
"Cranberry is a fruit. Red is a colour."

XDDDD