Community Discussions
Explore the latest discussions and community conversations related to this domain.
Please Please Please lyrics
Main Post:
So I’m absolutely in love with this song and can’t stop singing it in my head. I’m the kind of person who pays attention to and kind of analyzes song lyrics - does anyone else do that? So...
In “Please Please Please,” the whole time she’s talking about how she has a history of dating bad dudes. Her friends have heard all of her excuses for past boyfriends and they’re over it. She’s telling them everyone makes mistakes, it’s just his culture, blah blah... then in the chorus she says “please, don’t prove I’m right.” So! This to me means she likes bad boys and she’s hoping this guy is a bad boy too. “I’m-telling-my-friends-you’re-not-trouble-but-please-don’t-prove-I’m-right-because-I-like-trouble”-vibes.
I feel like people are hearing the song and relating to it because they think she’s asking her man to actually be a “stand-up guy,” when what she’s really saying is “just pretend to be cool in front of my friends, but please please please don’t actually be a good guy.”
Now that’s just a grammatical interpretation for if what she’s saying is “don’t prove I’M right.”
But!! If the lyrics are actually “don’t prove ‘EM right,” then the message of the song could be interpreted as “please prove my friends wrong and show them you’re really a good guy.”
Hopefully someone can follow this random lyric rant, my brain has been stuck on this for like two weeks and I don’t have anyone else I can discus this very important topic with 😅
Top Comment: Spotify lyrics said it is Dont prove them right, but Genius lyrics said it is Don ́t prove Im right. I am glad I am not the only one having this question, for me it makes sense that she says ́them ́ since she is talking about her friends warning her about the boy.
Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please
Main Post: Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please
Top Comment: This is super cute but I can already tell it’s not gonna be the hit espresso was. But I think it’s really good for her to show off some versatility since everyone was assuming she was gonna just put 11 more espressos on the album lol.
I genuinely can't stand "Please Please Please" by Sabrina Carpenter.
Main Post:
Listen I knew Sabrina would get recognition from the Eras Tour but not THIS much. Her song Espresso" became a global smash this year out of nowhere. I mean nothing to get mad at. It's a catchy bop that ruled the UK charts. The follow up however was just this irritatingly slow paced song "Please Please Please". It somehow managed to get huge topping charts in the US to become her first number one.
I personally can not stand this grating country pop song which was sounds very much like a draft from a Taylor Swift album. It even had similar producers. I know that some people might like this song so let me know your opinion.
Top Comment: Are you going to post this in every sub? I’ve already seen this rant.😂
Has "please" evolved into "do this for me now!"
Main Post:
As kids we are taught to say "please" to be courteous but I am seeing in the workplace people use "please" to mean the task needs to be down NOW. Even if I have multiple other tasks I'm working on. Someone says "please" then it means they want it now and to be placed ahead of everyone else. Almost like a phrase to psychologically manipulate you.
Maybe "please" has always been used this way and I've been ignorant to noticing it. Several years ago the phrase "puhhhhh leeez" gained popularity online to use it in a sarcastic way. And as a 35-year old, I seem to recall "please" used in multiple sarcastic and ironic ways throughout my life. Has this caused an evolution of the word where it has lost its courteous meaning?
So should we still teach kids that "please" is a courteous phrase? I also have noticed "may I" has disappeared completely from most adult English language use but "please" is a special case where I see it has evolved into something sinister rather than disappearing.
I am interested in what everyone thinks. Also chime in if you disagree that "may I" has disappeared from adult language. Part of me wonders if we teach kids these phrases as a means of control or have I completely lost the plot in that suggestion?
Top Comment: No, it's just passive-agressive (or to reference Parks and Recreation, "nicey-meany") and bad management. It is also used in French "Merci de faire ça." Very unpleasant to hear it.
CMV: The word "please" is unnecessary
Main Post: CMV: The word "please" is unnecessary
Top Comment: It’s odd that you could so effectively articulate the functional utility of the word “please” and then immediately dismiss that it has any functional utility. “Please is nothing but a politeness marker”...yes, yes exactly. That’s precisely its utility.
Why is it necessary to say "please"?
Main Post:
I ask because people get annoyed by me asking things without saying "please," most of the time I forget. In my point of view, I view asking for someone to do something as already being polite, as opposed to demanding someone to do something, which is rude.
An example is "Can you get me a glass of water", "Get a glass of water for me".
That's mainly the reason why I forget to say "please", of course I say "thank you" because that makes a lot more sense to me, you're expressing gratitude for them finishing the task.
Is there a reason to say "please"? (beyond just "it's the polite thing to do", I want a more specific answer)
Edit: thank you for the advice, for the longest time I thought just asking if someone can do something was polite (thinking that was allowing them the option to accept or decline was enough, I would never want to force someone to do something for me),
However the explanations make so much more sense now as to how much this one word can help, primarily with setting tone (i hella struggle with tone in the first place) so I'll try to remind myself more so I don't forget. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
Top Comment: Hey u/JackAmpersand , thank you for your post at r/autism . Our rules can be found here . All approved posts get this message. Thanks! I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Might I have some advice on the use of word "please", please?
Main Post:
In my native language there is no equivalent for the word please. There are numerous other ways of conveying polite tone that do not translate well to English of course, except conditional. May I, Might I, etc. Because of this, I struggle to remember to use please.
Example: I am ordering a sandwich.
I say, "May I have a ham sandwich?"
Instead of "May I have a ham sandwich please?"
Am I being hopelessly rude?
Top Comment: "May I have a sandwich?" conveys politeness. It is perfectly acceptable. Body language and a smile also do wonders for conveying politeness.
Do Adults Actually Say Please?
Main Post:
This is a weird one. Right now I have an almost two year old who has learned to say both “sorry” and “thank you” just by being in the house with my husband and myself. We realized she never learned to say “please” and then it clicked that my husband and I don’t really say it all that much. We ask each other to do things. “Could you get me a drink?” Or “Can you grab something on the way home?” Never saw it as particularly rude to ask for help sans please, especially because we see each other as equals working on the same team. Seems normal to just ask something of your teammate without the formalities.
In fact, the more I think on it, the more I realize I only say please is if I’m frustrated (“Could you PLEASE stop?”) or if the other party is an authority figure (asking a professor if I can please make up an exam, etc), or maybe if heeding someone a warning (“please don’t make the mistakes I did”).
So my question is, as adults in Western culture, do we actually feel compelled to say “please” when asking something of someone? Or is this just something my family has fallen into? And if so, are we being rude? As adults nobody really is there to correct me when I am rude so I don’t know! Truly! I want to clarify that “thank you” and “sorry” are still very much necessities to me.
TL;DR: I realized that I stopped saying “please” around the time I became an adult and nobody was requiring it of me. Asking if others do the same or if my family is being extremely rude without knowing.
Top Comment: I always say please and thank you even as an adult, we just don’t really have someone like our parents trying to enforce us to keep up with our manners anymore so I guess some people will stop
Does anyone else hate the word "please"
Main Post:
Ever since I was a small child, I've never understood the point of saying please. Adults would tell me to say please because it's "good manners" but that just sounds like an arbitrary, made up explanation, and the only reason why people think it's good manners is because they've been taught to think that way and just accepted it. Furthermore, when people I'm close to say please to me in a normal request, it feels hostile. It reminds me of teachers telling me to "say please!!" and refusing to answer my request until I did so. Overall, please is just an unnecessary, sometimes hostile word that I wish we could all decide to stop saying.
Top Comment: Think of it as an honorific of sorts. It can signal both urgency but also that you realize that what you're asking imposes on the recipient. It can indicate that they are your equal as a person and not just some machine to do your requested task. Just about every language and culture has some form of "please" and there's a reason for it. Just because the literal word itself may be made up, doesn't mean it doesn't serve a very real and tangible purpose.
Help me settle a debate about the word 'please'
Main Post:
Hello people of reddit, in my household we are having a debate about the word 'please' I hope you can help settle. We are three non-native English speakers but we are all fluent in English.
Now, my stepfather claims it is normal for people in England to say please when handing someone something, the way we in Dutch would say 'alsjeblieft', kind of like a more polite way of saying 'there you go'. Yet me and my mother maintain that it is very uncommon.I can hardly imagine asking someone to pass me the salt and them handing it whilst saying "please!"
My stepfather lived in England longer than me and invokes that fact to support his claim but my mum lived in England and New Zealand and we're all fluent in English. Admittedly I haven't spent as much time around native English speakers but this does not seem like the sort of thing one would only learn after a lot of experience, it is a pretty basic expression/pleasantry after all. What's your thoughts on this?
Top Comment: Canadian here. People have given you great answers already. I think I want to echo what everyone else is saying, but also point out the situational confluence of "please" and "of course!" As other people mentioned, if you asked your host if you could have a cookie, they could gesture and say "please" indicating "please help yourself" / in the same spirit as the direct answer to the question being "of course! (you may have a cookie)". But if you ask someone to pass the salt, it wouldn't be natural to respond "please!" (Because "please help yourself" when you've asked for their help passing you the salt doesn't make sense.) But I would think in such a situation it'd be more natural to respond "of course!" Sometimes things and phrases mean the same thing only in certain contexts/situations and other times it does not work at all 😂
Why does "please" matter?
Main Post:
"Would you mind doing me a favor and upvote this post?"
versus
"Would you mind doing me a favor and upvote this post please?"
Ask someone to do something and, all else being equal, they are more likely to do it if you say please. Why? What is special about this word? Is it an appeal to emotion? Am I emphasizing my need for you to do the thing? Is it just that we are culturally taught that "please" == polite, therefore the second sentence is more polite because... it just is?
Note I'm not trying to argue that it doesn't matter, I'm just curious why it does.
Top Comment:
It re-emphasizes the "it's a favor" part of the request.
People are willing to do favors, because it's a nearly universal human value that favors can be repaid later.
I hate the word "please" being used for unavoidable task
Main Post: I hate the word "please" being used for unavoidable task