Doing to Order.

I get irritated by those banners that are sometimes flung across YouTube videos saying:

Subscribe to our channel NOW!

Don’t they know that I never accede to anything that has an exclamation mark at the end? It smacks too much of

SIT!

ROLL OVER!

FETCH!

If it said ‘You might wish to consider subscribing to our channel. It’s rather good and completely free,’ I might consider subscribing.

Some London Underground stations have excessive curvature on the track, which causes there to be a gap between the train and the platform. Such stations have a recorded announcement which says ‘Mind the gap’ every time the train doors open. I gather something similar is used in other western countries. (The New York subway has ‘watch the gap,’ apparently. If it said that in London, heaven knows how long it would take the train to clear while people stood around saying ‘Why, is something going to happen?’)

The Japanese, however, find such a curt mode of expression offensive. Their announcements have ‘There is a wide space between the train and the platform, so please be careful.’

No matter that a dozen people have fallen through the gap before they get to the end of the announcement. What matters is that it’s polite.