Asshole replies aside: I took a technical writing course in which we learned that people struggle talking to Americans because we are obsessed with using negatives as a form of emphasis. How are you doing? Not bad! Thank you! No problem. Do you mind doing me a favor? Not at all!
This is especially difficult who already struggle with affirmatives and then need to translate the negative. Combine this with Americans’ constant need to appeal to power, you get headlines like “Goliath Loses Battle to David With a Stone,” or “No one saw This Heat Coming,” or “What You’re Probably Doing Wrong With Your Used Toilet Paper.”
Except for " Do you mind…" I see you point and never noticed it before. I’m guilty of most of these.
However, the polite response to “Do you mind?” is “no.” Otherwise you would mind, and if you do mind, you wouldn’t want to do the favor. It’s actually a weird question because it basically flips the meaning of “yes” and “no” you usually expect.
Asshole replies aside: I took a technical writing course in which we learned that people struggle talking to Americans because we are obsessed with using negatives as a form of emphasis. How are you doing? Not bad! Thank you! No problem. Do you mind doing me a favor? Not at all!
This is especially difficult who already struggle with affirmatives and then need to translate the negative. Combine this with Americans’ constant need to appeal to power, you get headlines like “Goliath Loses Battle to David With a Stone,” or “No one saw This Heat Coming,” or “What You’re Probably Doing Wrong With Your Used Toilet Paper.”
Except for " Do you mind…" I see you point and never noticed it before. I’m guilty of most of these.
However, the polite response to “Do you mind?” is “no.” Otherwise you would mind, and if you do mind, you wouldn’t want to do the favor. It’s actually a weird question because it basically flips the meaning of “yes” and “no” you usually expect.
That’s a good argument untiiiillll you consider that this question is essentially a negated version of “Will you please…”
See also: “Why don’t you…”