A conundrum

[Tom Zurinskas]

It peeves me too.  You know they're dead set on asking the questiion.  So why don't they say "Let me ask you this?" But to ask a question about permission to ask a question, means you've already asked a question in the first place. That's hashtag, really hashtag.

Tom Zurinskas, first Ct 20 yrs, then Tn 3, NJ 33, Fl 9.
Learn the alphabet and sounds of US English at justpaste.it/ayk


 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: A conundrum
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> If I'm concentrating on something, my answer very well might be no. The question is not only a social nicety approximately meaning "excuse me," but provides the interlocutor a way to avoid needing to consider a serious question when brain resources are at a premium.
> 
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
> 
> On Aug 3, 2011, at 7:02 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> 
> > One of my pet peeves is people who ask me whether they can ask me a
> > question, thereby asking me a question and precluding the possibility
> > of my refusing them permission to ask me a question. It is not
> > sensible to ask permission to ask a question by asking permission to
> > ask a question, given that the only way to ask permission to ask a
> > question is by asking a question without permission to ask a question.
> >
> > A straightforward way out of this is to oblige people to ask questions
> > with asking for permission to ask a question.
> 
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