the owl and the olive tree

Fascinating, fascinating, fascinating series of posts in ozarque's journal about requests, asking vs. hinting, and other such grammatical pragmatics of asking for things. It ties deeply into a lot of the problems/conflicts I've had. The discussion is at least as interesting as the posts themselves, in terms of seeing how widely people differ in what they're comfortable asking/saying/being asked.

(ozarque is a trained linguist, so she approaches this from that perspective. She also has a fascinating journal in general. Her real name is Suzette Haden Elgin, on the chance that you've seen her books/heard of her.)

The thread is called "Linguistics; pragmatics; favors:"

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Six Afternote

I was raised to only ask for things if you think the request is reasonable and likely to be acceded to; to only ask for things if you really need them; to not ask for things if you think the person you're asking is likely to have to say no (unless it is vital in that critical-to-life way); and -- because of this -- to assume that requests are vital (since they wouldn't ask if it wasn't!), and therefore that saying no would create hardship. (I am trying to overcome the rigidity of this training -- it's very useful when dealing with other people who work that way, but results in quite a lot of friction when dealing with people who are freer about asking for things.)

It's fascinating to see other peoples' different expectations about favors/requests -- all the way to people who are perfectly happy asking someone for five thousand dollars! They can say no, after all....

(ozarque is a fascinating read in general. She's a linguist, she's a science fiction writer, she's from a very different background than a lot of people I read -- the Ozarks, hence her name -- and she's not a young woman, which also gives her an interestingly different perspective and a lot of experience.)