gentleman

[James Harbeck]

Well, given that many children eventually learn that "please" means
their parent is upset or impatient, I think the similar use of
similarly polite "gentleman" to express something deprecatory is not
as surprising as it might be. I've certainly heard "gentlemen with
deep suntans" a few times, for instance, and I'm sure you can guess
what that meant; I have heard various politeness forms used with
negative connotations quite a few times, though I admit I was not
diligent enough to keep track of what percentage of the time.

Has anyone here done a study on ratio of negative to positive uses of
politeness forms? I'm sure there's something out there, but I'm not
up to looking it up tonight...

I wonder whether we're not on the way to a majority use of politeness
forms for negative connotations.

James Harbeck.

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