词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Lida Baker: Making a Request

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": May 23, 2002
Re-broadcast on VOA News Now: May 26, 2002

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- how to make a request, as in, "Could you help us out?"

RS: That's what we asked our friend Lida Baker¹. She teaches in the American Language Center at the University of California at Los Angeles, and she writes textbooks for English learners.

AA: We'll start with the simplest form of request, the imperative² form: "Close the door." "Sit down." "Read this." Beware³, though: Unless you're saying this in a friendly way to someone you feel comfortable with, you could offend⁴ people. That's because it sounds more like an order than a request.

BAKER: "Most Americans, I think, would agree that the imperative form is a little bit too direct."

RS: "It doesn't give you a sense of security⁵ or politeness."

BAKER: "Right. So what we do is that we can take that imperative form and we can add words and phrases that we call softeners. So 'close the door doesn't sound very polite, but as soon as we say 'please close the door' it becomes a lot more acceptable⁶."

RS: Now if that's not polite enough, Lida Baker says, you can take it a step further.

BAKER: "Would you mind closing the door' or 'would you mind telling me where the cafeteria is?' So we also use the form 'would you mind' followed by the -ing form if we're trying to be very polite.

"Now an interesting thing about requests is if we think that we're asking for something that's an imposition on the other person, or if the other person has a lot more authority⁷ than we have, then we might tend to make the request longer and we would add these softeners at the beginning that are kind of a combination⁸ of the things that we have already talked about.

"So we start with 'close the door.' We add 'please close the door,' and to make it softer, we could say, 'Could you please close the door,' and to make it even softer, we could say, 'Could I ask you to please close the door?'"

AA: Lida Baker says you'll never offend anybody if you begin a request with a phrase like "could you" or "would you," as in, "Would you mind closing the door?"

BAKER: "By the way there's something interesting about the form 'would you mind closing the door.' How do you answer that?"

AA: "Yes, I mind. (laughter)"

RS: "You don't answer that. You just say yes."

AA: "It's rhetorical."

BAKER: "OK, if I say to you, 'would you mind lending me your English book?'"

RS: "I might say 'no problem.'"

BAKER: "That's right. You don't say 'yes' or 鈥榥o.鈥?You say 'no problem' or you say 'sure.' But what does it mean if you say 'no'?"

RS: "No, I wouldn't mind lending you (the) book' -- which means yes! (laughter)"

BAKER: "That's right. It's funny with this expression 'would you mind,' that 'no' means 'yes.' 'No, I wouldn't mind' means 'yes, I'm going to lend you my book.'"

RS: "You know, the problem here is the question is not a yes or a no question, so you can't answer it with a yes or a no."

BAKER: "That's exactly right. If they agree to do what you want, they'll say 'sure' or no problem and if they're not able to do the thing that you're asking them to do, they'll say something like 'sorry' and then they'll give you an excuse. So if you say 'would you mind lending me your English book tonight,' they'll say, sorry, I can't. I need it.'

"Here's another one that we haven't mentioned before, if you REALLY want to be polite, you could say to somebody: 'I hope I'm not imposing⁹, but could you please lend me your English book."

AA: "But you would reserve that for a situation where you're really asking for an imposition."

BAKER: "You suspect that what you're asking for is asking the person to go out of their way for you."

AA: Lida Baker -- whose books are available through the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company -- cannot reply to messages personally. But she does go out of her way to answer questions on the air, so keep sending them in!

RS: Our postal¹⁰ address is VOA Wordmaster, Washington DC 20237 USA. E-mail is..........And our Web site is voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Could You Use Me" [from George and Ira Gershwin's Great Depression-era Broadway show "Girl Crazy"]

 

1 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

2 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。

3 beware   

vt./vi.谨防，当心

参考例句：

• Beware of the fire.留心火烛。
• Beware of being too impatient with others.注意不要对他人太没有耐心。

4 offend   

v.犯错误；违犯；犯罪

参考例句：

• He took care never to offend his visitors.他小心谨慎，绝不得罪他的访客。
• I think I never offend you.我想我从没有触犯过你。

5 security   

n.安全，安全感；防护措施；保证(金)，抵押(品)；债券，证券

参考例句：

• A security guard brought him down with a flying tackle.一名保安人员飞身把他抱倒。
• There was tight security at the airport when the President's plane landed.总统的专机降落时，机场的保安措施很严密。

6 acceptable   

adj.可接受的，合意的，受欢迎的

参考例句：

• The terms of the contract are acceptable to us.我们认为这个合同的条件可以接受。
• Air pollution in the city had reached four times the acceptable levels.这座城市的空气污染程度曾高达可接受标准的四倍。

7 authority   

n.当局，官方；权力，权威，威信；当权者

参考例句：

• He is recognized internationally as an authority in this field.国际上承认他是这方面的一个权威。
• Professor White is looked upon as an authority on mathematics.怀特教授被看成数学权威。

8 combination   

n.组合，合并，联合；

参考例句：

• He carried on the business in combination with his friends.他与朋友们合伙做生意。
• The materials can be used singly or in combination.这些材料可以单独使用也可以混合用。

9 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

10 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。