I have to ask,

October 6, 2008 3:48 PM

"I'd like to welcome you to Dallas-Fort Worth" "I would say that's correct" What is this linguistic construct called?

"I need to apologize" "I should say so!" "I'd like to thank you for flying Air Aubilenon"

All these sentences express a sentiment only by saying the speaker wants that sentiment expressed. What's it's called when you do that?

(I guess "I do declare, I've never been so full in my life!" is sort of the opposite?)

Bonus question: why do airlines use it so much?

posted by aubilenon to writing & language (17 comments total)

William Safire wrote a good column recently on this very subject.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:56 PM on October 6, 2008

The subjunctive mood is fairly common and more complicated to explain than to use.

I would say that (heh) you seem to have observed the way that it sometimes creates some distance between the speaker and the presumed outcome. Thus it sometimes smacks (as Safire notes) of false sincerity, or of humorous exaggeration.

I think airlines have to treat people a bit poorly a lot of the time to maintain efficiency. "We're here, now get the hell off the plane" isn't really acceptable. You probably see similar things said in any crowd control situation: "Would everyone please back away from the stage?" It's a way of addressing people in a group, some of whom may be more or less receptive and/or compliant already.
posted by dhartung at 4:08 PM on October 6, 2008

"Would everyone please back away from the stage" is different from "I'd like to ask everyone to back away from the stage."

"Would you like a cookie?" is different from "Can I offer you a cookie?"

I'm asking specifically about the second ones of both examples.
posted by aubilenon at 4:20 PM on October 6, 2008

Yep. It's a grammatical construct used to express politeness by removing some of the directness of statements. It's a politeness indicator that is found in a lot of languages. Even Japanese, a language that has little in common with English, uses the same sort of language (although not the exact same words) to add a tone of deference to declarative sentences or sentences requesting something of the listener. (i.e. 'It looks like it's raining' vs. 'It's raining')

As for the airline industry using these constructs so much is because there are few industries that have such intimate, in-your-face contact with their customers. They have to tell us when to get on board, how to be safe, and when we can get up to go to the bathroom. We spend a few hours at a time with our airline and they'll spend at least a little of it telling us what to do and what is going on. Still, we are the customers, so they go the extra mile to be deferential.
posted by Alison at 4:23 PM on October 6, 2008

There is a class of expressions called "performatives" or "performative utterances" which are those sentences that accomplish what they describe upon utterance. "I now pronounce you husband and wife" is one example, also "I christen this child John." How do you christen someone? You just say "I christen you ..." and the feat is accomplished. Some of the sentences in your question are performatives.

The study of how particular sentences are used to express meaning forms a large part of pragmatics, which is a sub-field of linguistics. If you're interested in this phenomenon, take a look at the works of Austin or Grice, two philosophers of language who have relevant writings on the subject.
posted by tractorfeed at 4:35 PM on October 6, 2008

In all your examples, there exists a "remoteness of time (the past), remoteness of possibility (a conditional), or remoteness of relationship to the addressee (politeness or formality)", to quote Wikipedia.

I would say that's correct is less certain an answer than that's totally 100% without a doubt correct!; would creates a sense that the speaker is either not entirely wedded to the item they are assessing for correctness ("I would say that's correct...even though I don't have all the information or have some doubt"), or is somehow trying to soften the blow of correctness, perhaps because of bad news:

"Doctor, is the lesion cancerous?"
"I would say that's correct."

Just as je voudrais (I would like...) in French is considered more polite and more formal than je veux (I want...), so too is I would like to welcome you to Dallas more formal and remote from a listener than I want to welcome you to Dallas.

I can't really offer much more than that, but yeah, I think it's a social distancer.
posted by mdonley at 4:37 PM on October 6, 2008

Right, in each of the above two examples, you go one step further away from being a direct statement.

Back away from the stage -> Everyone please back away from the stage -> Would everyone please back away from the stage -> I'd like to ask everyone to back away from the stage -> I'd like to ask everyone to please back away from the stage -> I'd like to ask if could please back away from the stage

By being less direct each successive statement appears more polite and a little more officious.

True story, once when I worked for my university's phone bank I managed to get stuck in an officious language loop. Part of my job was to ask parents for sensitive information about their offspring for their financial aid records and we were cautioned to be extra polite because this would be our pool of future donors. After a long day I had to ask one parent for their child's SSN and I started to say "Do you think I could please have Junior's SSN?" But it came out as "I would like to please ask if you think I could please inquire if you would be able to tell us...blah blah". I only managed to snap out of it when the woman on the other end of the phone laughed at me.
posted by Alison at 4:37 PM on October 6, 2008

Looking back through my lecture notes I see more examples of performatives: thanking, congratulating, announcing, assuring, betting.
posted by tractorfeed at 4:41 PM on October 6, 2008

I know I'm not answering your question, but I have to share this story. Many years ago, when Eastern still existed, we took a flight with a funny flight attendant. Almost every PA announcement had some silly joke in it (he even did the standard safety speech super fast, Micro-Machines style). At the end of the flight he said "On behalf of myself, the captain, the crew, and the shareholders of Eastern, I'd like to thank you for flying with us today, so I will: thank you for flying Eastern"
posted by O9scar at 4:43 PM on October 6, 2008

"On behalf of myself": another "distancing" construction that I hate...
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 4:51 PM on October 6, 2008

There was a recent question on a related topic. (I had trouble finding it until I saw that tractorfeed mentioned performatives and figured out what to search for.)
posted by cider at 5:04 PM on October 6, 2008

The subjunctive mood is fairly common and more complicated to explain than to use.

None of the examples in the question are subjunctive.
posted by languagehat at 5:05 PM on October 6, 2008

They're all passive.

Stephen King goes on a bit (surprise), about passive language in his book "On Writing". He's not a fan. Neither am I. None of these phrases sound natural coming from the speakers mouths. Some of it is standard customer service spiel directly from corporate, the rest is the product of timidity. Not that there's any difference between the two.
posted by lilnemo at 5:14 PM on October 6, 2008

This irks me to no end. When someone says "I'd like to thank you", all I think is that they're really saying "I'd like to thank you...BUT I WON'T!" Just say "thank you!" To me it's not polite at all.

I don't think this is passive, is it? Wouldn't passive be: "may I cause you to be thanked?"
posted by drinkcoffee at 5:43 PM on October 6, 2008

It irks me, too, drinkcoffee. Sometimes I say something like,

"I would think that's why we're getting this error. I mean, I _would_ think that, but I am not going to." So, I become just as annoying! :-D
posted by tcv at 8:31 PM on October 6, 2008

They're all passive.

None of the examples in the question are passive.

So, I become just as annoying!

Far more annoying, actually. The other people are just using polite formulas, which are not meant to be taken literally, any more than "Goodbye" is meant to be taken as "God be with you." You, on the other hand, are deliberately being obtuse and annoying, assuming you actually do that.
posted by languagehat at 6:23 AM on October 7, 2008

In Spanish language, this is called the conditional tense, which is similar to the subjunctive mood, both expressing desire/preference/want/conjecture/possibility.

Most importantly, the conditional is most used in instances where you are wanting to be very polite, e.g. airlines.

See older thread:
http://ask.metafilter.com/24620/I-would-like-to-be-more-polite

Additionally, if no linguistic terms exists, perhaps we could make one up.
posted by alice ayres at 9:22 AM on October 7, 2008