Allow vs Please - What's the difference?
allow | please |
To grant, give, admit, accord, afford, or yield; to let one have.
* 2004 , Constance Garnett (translator), Anton Chekhov (Russian author), “Ariadne”, in The Darling: and Other Stories :
To acknowledge; to accept as true; to concede; to accede to an opinion.
* 1855 , (William Makepeace Thackeray), (The Newcomes)
To grant (something) as a deduction or an addition; especially to abate or deduct.
To grant license to; to permit; to consent to.
*
To not bar or obstruct.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-26, author=(Leo Hickman)
, volume=189, issue=7, page=26, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= To acknowledge or concede.
* 2000 , (George RR Martin), A Storm of Swords , Bantam (2011), page 154:
To take into account by making an allowance.
To render physically possible.
* 1824 , (Washington Irving), :
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
, page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (obsolete) To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction.
* Bible, Luke xi. 48
* Fuller
(obsolete) To sanction; to invest; to entrust.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To like; to be suited or pleased with.
* Massinger
(label) To make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties?; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].}}
To desire; to will; to be pleased by.
* Bible, (Psalms) cxxxv. 6
[http://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00044218]
* 1973: "Bitte or Bitter?", , August 1973, p. 109 [//books.google.com/books?id=CesCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA109]
* 1978: Virginia Watson-Rouslin, "A Foreign View", Cincinnati , September 1978, p. 110 [//books.google.com/books?id=cesCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA110]
* 1979: "Winners: Contest No. 13—The Laugh’s On Us", Cincinnati , September 1979, volume 12, issue 12, p. 15 [//books.google.com/books?id=dusCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA15]
* 1998: Jose I. Sarasua, "Come to Cincinnati... Please?", Cost Engineering , volume 40, issue 5, 5 May 1998, p. 9 [http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/editorials/664754/come-cincinnati-please]
* 2001: Jeff Robinson, "Say what?", Ohio Magazine , April 2001, p. 77 [http://lrc.ohio.edu/lrcmedia/Streaming/lingCALL/ling270/saywhat.pdf?page=2]
* 2008: , The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English , ISBN 0374254109, p. 255 [//books.google.com/books?id=3eerb4RTYF8C&pg=PA255]
* 2011: Ellen McIntyre, Nancy Hulan, Vicky Layne, Reading Instruction for Diverse Classrooms: Research-Based, Culturally Responsive Practice , Guilford Press, ISBN 1609180569, p. 72 [//books.google.com/books?id=m7BAOCj8mHQC&pg=PA72]
As verbs the difference between allow and please
is that allow is to grant, give, admit, accord, afford, or yield; to let one have while please is (label) to make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.As an adverb please is
or please can be [http://wwwdaredictionarycom/view/dare/id_00044218].allow
English
Verb
(en verb)- he needed a great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is.
- I allow , with Mrs. Grundy and most moralists, that Miss Newcome's conductwas highly reprehensible.
- With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get
How algorithms rule the world, passage=The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives. And, as their ubiquity spreads, so too does the debate around whether we should allow ourselves to become so reliant on them – and who, if anyone, is policing their use.}}
- Half the night passed before the wench allowed that it might be safe to stop.
- When calculating a budget for a construction project, always allow for contingencies.
- The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill.
Ideas coming down the track, passage=A “moving platform” scheme
- Ye allow the deeds of your fathers.
- We commend his pains, condemn his pride, allow his life, approve his learning.
- Thou shalt be allowed with absolute power.
- How allow you the model of these clothes?
Synonyms
* allot, assign, bestow, concede, admit, let, permit, suffer, tolerateDerived terms
* allowance * allowableReferences
*Statistics
* English control verbsplease
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) ).Alternative forms
* (l)Verb
(pleas)“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/1
- Whatsoever the Lord pleased , that did he.
Synonyms
* (to make happy) satisfy * (to desire) desire, willAntonyms
* (to make happy) annoy, irritate, disgust, displeaseEtymology 2
Short for if you please, an intransitive, ergative form taken from which replaced pray .Alternative forms
* (for the exaggerated way it is often pronounced as the expression of annoyance) puh-leaseAdverb
(-)- Please , pass the bread.
- Would you please sign this form?
- Could you tell me the time, please ?
- —May I help you? —Please .
- Oh, please , do we have to hear that again?
Derived terms
* pretty pleaseEtymology 3
Calque of (etyl) [//books.google.com/books?id=4e7XLGfekD8C&pg=PA16][http://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/how-to-speak-cincinnatiese/]Adverb
(-)- Fellow: May I have a few days off to get married?
- Reply, in the Cincinnati idiom by a boss who had heard the sound but not the sense:
- Boss: Please ?
- Even though I heard it was supposed to be German-Catholic background, there’s only one thing German — they say ‘please ’ [for the more common ‘pardon me’], which comes from bitte .
- “…He explained in broken English that one of his daughters was ill and he probably could not be there. I did not understand all that he said, so asked, ‘Please ?’ per Cincinnati custom. ‘There is no need to plead. I will be there if she is feeling better,’ he replied.”
- Cincinnati are some of the most polite persons I have ever met in the US. When asking someone a question, instead of saying “Excuse me,” or “Pardon,” they say “Please ?”
- By the same token, one contestant who doesn’t hear a particular question could say “Pardon me?” while another could say “Please ?” Again, neither would be lying if he said he was from Ohio.
- In Maine, where as much as a quarter of the population has French ancestry, you may hear a stray hair called a couette'', and in parts of Ohio ''please'' is used in the same way as the German ''bitte , to invite a person to repeat something just said – apparently a remnant of the bilingual schooling once available in Cincinnati.
- Ellen grew up outside of Cincinnati and believed her own talk was the “norm,” while others were speakers of dialects. She was in graduate school before she learned that not all people say, Please ?'' to mean ''Can you repeat that?