please
/plēz/
intransitive verb
- To give enjoyment, pleasure, or satisfaction to; make glad or contented.
- To be the will or desire of. May it please the court to admit this firearm as evidence.
- To give satisfaction or pleasure; be agreeable. waiters who try hard to please.
What was the original meaning of “please,” and how exactly did it function?
meaning - About the use of 'say please' - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
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word indicating politeness and respect while making a request
When reading English texts from, say, the 1700s, I’ll encounter phrases like, “Please to invite the captain to dinner,” which I understand to mean “Please invite the captain to dinner.”
The way I use and understand “please” (in this sense; not the sense of “to give pleasure”) is that it’s essentially meaningless, and functions only as a tag to connote courtesy. Any sentence with “please” used this way still stands as correct when “please” is removed.
But this archaic usage makes it seem like it has a more tangible function. The sentence no longer works when “please” is omitted because there’s still that “to.”
So what is the history here?
"Say please" is often used when teaching a child politeness. Some may extend that to teaching non-native speakers as well. "Can you do ..." does not have the same meaning as "Please ..."
A few time this has happened to me: Someone asked me "Would you like to ..." and I answered truthfully "No". Only later, when the incident was past, I realized they meant to say "Please ...", to which I would have answered "Yes".
"Say 'please'" is something you say to a child after they've asked for something, to remind them to say it politely, in the same way you would tell them "Don't talk with your mouth full" or "Say 'excuse me' after you burb" or "Cover your mouth when you cough".
In case it wasn't clear to you as a non-native speaker, this isn't a set phrase "say please", it's an instruction to say the word please, "Say 'please'".
For someone to have said this to you means the person was treating you like a child, either because that person is a jerk, or because they felt you were being rude to them and this was their way of telling you that you that. Even then, it wasn't very mature of them.