The young Roget was phobic about dirt and easily upset by a world he saw as random, messy, unpredictable, and disorderly. Before age 8, he had already filled notebooks with lists of words grouped by categories: for example, all the animals he could think of, all the parts of the body, and even “Things Found in the Garden.” He recorded, for example, the total number of stair steps he climbed up each day, and kept a separate count of the steps he went down. But in the late eighteenth century, the London-born son of a clergyman had to find his own way to cope: He obsessively counted things and made lists.
Another word for things to expect professional#
In our time he would probably be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder or perhaps classified as having high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome, and if he’d been born in the twenty-first century, professional help could have been sought. Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) was an unusual kid. It gave us a book that is of great use, utility, value, help, worth, and functionality. Once there was a man, a biographer noted, “more interested in words than people.” That turned out to be a great thing for BRI writers and other wordsmiths. Whether or not you wanted us to advise, that’s advice you can live by.The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader That will keep your emails clear and courteous no matter what. But first, just make sure the rest of your email doesn’t seem impolite. If you like the formality of “please advise,” go ahead and use it. Other people think it’s redundant: just ask your question and call it a day. Some people don’t like it because it can be interpreted as rude or demanding. In the end, there’s nothing grammatically wrong with “please advise.” It’s just a question of usage and style. Advice is a noun, meaning “suggestions for what to do,” and advise is a verb meaning “to give advice.” Mix up your s and your c and you’ll need advice on your spelling, as well as on the question you’re actually asking. ”Īnother potential problem is the difference between advise and advice. To get around verb confusion, you can think of “please advise” as a shortcut for “please advise. However, it’s pretty obvious who is to be advised: whoever wrote the email. In other words, someone has to be advised. So, if your message feels complete without “please advise,” just ask your question and leave it at that.Īs far as grammar goes, some experts say that “advise” is a transitive verb, so it needs to have an object. They already know they’re supposed to get back to you with answers, with or without the “please advise” tacked on at the end. Here’s a crazy idea: if you’re writing an email asking for information, advice, or ideas from a colleague, they’ll see your request in the body of the email. In the second example email above, the “please advise” doesn’t necessarily come across as rude, but it’s also not strictly necessary.
In most cases, the phrase comes after a question, so it ends up functioning as filler words or worse, as in Eric’s email. That’s right: the best way to get around “please advise” is just to leave it out. If you want alternatives for “please advise” that work in a more modern, casual workplace, try these synonyms: In fact, it sounds a bit stuffy and old-fashioned. Jennifer’s email, on the other hand, tries to be polite, even though Jared has clearly caused some delays. In Eric’s email, which already seems passive aggressive, the “please advise” at the end is the bitter cherry on top. I know you’re swamped, but can you let me know whether it’s okay to move forward with publishing the article? Hoping to get it up mid-week.
You were the last person to give these trainings, so I’d appreciate some background on the order and how the exercises are supposed to work. I was hoping you could help me go over the training decks. These example emails give a sense of the different ways “please advise” might come across to a reader. In most cases, this confusion can take place when “please advise” appears as the end of an email. The way readers interpret “please advise” depends not only on what the message is about but also on the tone of the rest of the message. Its primary meaning is a request for information, but it can also come across as having one of those last two meanings-and that’s not so pleasant. Give me the information I already asked for in the body of this emailĪs you can see, “please advise” can be interpreted in a variety of ways.Can you give me your thoughts, answers, or input?.Here are a few possible synonyms for “please advise”: Please advise: What does “Please advise” mean?ĭepending on the context, the person who’s using the phrase, and what that person wants, the phrase can have a few different meanings.