Pledge vs Please - What's the difference?
pledge | please |
To make a solemn promise (to do something).
To deposit something as a security; to pawn.
To give assurance of friendship by the act of drinking; to drink to one's health.
* 1773 ,
* 1852 , Matthew Arnold, Tristram and Iseult
A solemn promise to do something.
Something given by a person who is borrowing money etc to the person he has borrowed it from, to be kept until the money etc is returned.
A person who has taken a pledge of allegiance to a college fraternity, but not yet formally approved.
A security to guarantee payment of a debt.
A drinking toast.
A promise to abstain from drinking alcohol.
(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]
In transitive terms the difference between pledge and please
is that pledge is to give assurance of friendship by the act of drinking; to drink to one's health while please is to make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.As verbs the difference between pledge and please
is that pledge is to make a solemn promise (to do something) while please is to make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.As a noun pledge
is a solemn promise to do something.As an adverb please is
lang=en|Used to make a polite request.pledge
English
(wikipedia pledge)Verb
(pledg)- HARDCASTLE [Taking the cup.] I hope you'll find it to your mind. I have prepared it with my own hands, and I believe you'll own the ingredients are tolerable. Will you be so good as to pledge me, sir? Here, Mr. Marlow, here is to our better acquaintance. [Drinks.]
- Reach me my golden cup that stands by thee,
- And pledge me in it first for courtesy.
Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* (l) * (l)Derived terms
* (l) * (l)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?