Please vs Entertain - What's the difference?
please | entertain | Related terms |
(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]
To amuse (someone); to engage the attention of agreeably.
(transitive, and, intransitive) To have someone over at one's home for a party or visit.
* Bible, Heb. xiii. 2
To receive and take into consideration; to have a thought in mind.
* De Quincey
* Hawthorne
(obsolete) To take or keep in one's service; to maintain; to support; to harbour; to keep.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To meet or encounter, as an enemy.
(obsolete) To lead on; to bring along; to introduce.
* Jeremy Taylor
(obsolete) ; pleasure.
(obsolete) Reception of a guest; welcome.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.8:
Please is a related term of entertain.
As verbs the difference between please and entertain
is that please is (label) to make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to while entertain is to amuse (someone); to engage the attention of agreeably.As an adverb please
is or please can be [http://wwwdaredictionarycom/view/dare/id_00044218].As a noun entertain is
(obsolete) ; pleasure.please
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?
Synonyms
* (request to repeat) what, excuse me, pardon me, come againReferences
Statistics
*entertain
English
Verb
(en verb)- to entertain friends with lively conversation
- The motivational speaker not only instructed but also entertained the audience.
- They enjoy entertaining a lot.
- Be not forgetful to entertain strangers
- The committee would like to entertain the idea of reducing the budget figures.
- to entertain a proposal
- I am not here going to entertain so large a theme as the philosophy of Locke.
- A rumour gained ground, — and, however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people.
- You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred.
- (Shakespeare)
- to baptize all nations, and entertain them into the services and institutions of the holy Jesus
Derived terms
* entertainer * entertaining * entertainmentNoun
(-)- But neede, that answers not to all requests, / Bad them not looke for better entertayne […].