Upon the generous bestowal of a gift card (Thanks, Emmie!), Susan and I went to Olive Garden for dinner tonight. Oh, so yummy. In our usual (if infrequent) order, there is nothing I don't enjoy fully. The salad, breadsticks, steak gorgonzola or chicken alfredo pizza, and dessert are absolutely wonderful. But there is one thing that tops everything: zuppa toscana. It is a perfectly spiced white soup of potatoes, sausage, and greens.
Which brings me to my point. The waiter came to check if we needed anything and asked me, having just finished a bowl of soup, "Do we need another bowl of soup?" Susan noted after Ben had left, "No, we don't, but you do." I told her he was using the inclusive of friendliness.
In my Greek classes over the years I have enjoyed a number of specialty grammar designations such as this. In technical terms, I might document the usage this way: Subject uses first person plural inclusive pronoun metonymously for second person singular or plural exclusive (relative to the speaker) pronoun. The speaker used a grammatical construction that includes himself in order to ingratiate himself in an exclusive environment. An inclusive of friendliness.
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2 comments:
Perhaps the inclusive of friendliness has lost a bit of it's charm in the 21st century. If a barber would ask if 'we' had a good hair cut, it would feel more condescending than friendly, especially if my hair cut sucked. The inclusive of friendliness falls flat if performance fails to match.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
A further use:
"Matthew we fell asleep in church, didn't we?" Vintage21 got the inclusive of judgmentalism/creepiness just right.
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