Almost the first words we teach our children when they are learning to talk is please and thank you – “Say the magic word!” These words are so basic to our lifestyle we couldn’t imagine not using them regularly. The English word please is short for ‘if it pleases you to do this’, similar to the French s’il vous plait ‘if you please’, and the Irish Gaelic, más é do thoil é, literally ‘if it is your will’, all of which would, in the past, have been said obsequiously from an inferior rank to a higher rank when making a request. There was a time in our British and European-based culture when only the servants would use these words – not the lords and masters. You are really saying “You don’t have to do this, only if you want to” when asking someone to “please pass the salt”. We say it nowadays to camouflage a command.

Sometimes we are outraged when these words are not used by people from other nations. Yet some countries such as Finland, Nepal, Mongolia, Greenland, Norway and Denmark have no everyday words for please or thank you. They are not being rude; it is just not considered necessary. In Spain, giving commands is not considered rude. However, Spain does have Por favor for please, short for hace el favor ‘do the favour’. The Icelandic word for please directly translates to ‘do it’. However, Norwegians and Danes say, ‘Can you be kind and pass the salt?’ or ‘Be so good as to tell me the time’.

To say thank you in Irish Gaelic, Go raibh maith agat literally means ‘May you have goodness’, a typical Irish blessing. In English, the word thank came, believe it or not, from the word ‘think,’ because it originally meant, ‘I will remember what you did for me’. Similarly, the Portuguese obrigado literally means ‘much obliged’ which is a way of saying ‘I am in your debt’.

David Graeber, in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, describes this situation as putting yourself at the mercy of the favour-giver. The French merci comes from mercy – much like being in debt to your benefactor.  Please and thank you could be seen as a request and an acknowledgement of the granting of that request.

Fortunately, simple politeness is no longer seen as an imaginary moral account book or a Mafia-style you-owe-me-a-favour transaction!

Happy Puzzling!