Essay Sample on Polite Speech

Question 3: Polite Speech

Polite speech has been a custom of society for centuries. It has been used from a simple greeting while checking out when shopping, all the way to royalty about to discuss important political matters. No matter someone’s status, everyone uses polite speech to convey a friendly feeling. However, overtime the function and value of polite speech has drastically changed to a point it has become a formality and not a necessity. I truly believe polite speech does not serve proper function or value within society today as it creates insincere relationships and conversations, as well as, it has become too far outdated.

Admittedly, there are those who believe that polite speech is an absolutely necessity and an integral part of society. They may describe how using polite speech while addressing an elder or a boss, displays their respect towards them as a person. Also, they could address how important polite speech is in certain aspects of life like introductions. It could help relieve the tension between people and create a more welcoming atmosphere. Certainly, this utilization of polite speech fosters specific aspects of life that are important. More importantly however, is the negative impacts of polite speech and its inability to develop compassionate conversations and its outdated methods.

The value of polite speech has greatly decreased overtime as it develops insincere conversations. I often get bad headaches and migraines, especially in school. This places me in an awful mood and extremely irritable. For some reason, I always form a headache after my first period math class, making me irritable for the remainder of the day. However, my second period class, biology, has a teacher who always uses polite speech as I enter the classroom. Everyday he asks, “how are you doing on this fine day?” and every day I reply, “absolutely wonderful”. I return the question and carry on the conversation, without ever telling about my persistent pain. My biology teacher does not know that I really do not enjoy going to his class because it makes my head worse to talk. He also does not know I do not like participating and speaking out, all because I feel it would be impolite if I ever said otherwise. If everyday I walking in without a fake smile, and truly said what was on my mind, he would believe me to be rude for oversharing and constantly talking about my problems. With this barrier of polite speech, I do not have a relationship with my biology teacher, and he only has a false perception of my feelings. On the contrary, I have an anatomy teacher, with who I will always inform when I have a headache during class. We never have the standard greeting of saying “we are doing just fine”, but when in reality we are having a hard day, just to appease some social standard of not sharing your problems. With this we can be accommodate to one another, as when I have a headache he never forces me to actively participate in class, but to just watch. It created a better relationship, where polite speech is not stopping the sincerity within our conversations. Within my experience, I have seen how polite speech will hinder my relationships in a way I feel I always have to not be my true self to uphold this standard; however, when polite speech is removed I feel my most comfortable and sincere. So, polite speech can hinder people’s relationships into insincerity, which in turn, decreases its value within society today.

In addition, polite speech has become outdated within the world we live in today. My grandparents come from a generation where everyone must be addressed with a sir or ma’am, and you must only be polite and not true when speaking to someone else. Whenever I am around my grandparents, I always have to address them with a sir or ma’am. If they ever ask me a question I can not speak my mind, but I must only say what they wish to hear. For example, if they made me a new dish to try, I will always have a serving of it. Even if I did not like the dish, I have to lie and state that it tasted great, in order to remain polite towards their efforts. Comparatively, when I am with my friends or people around my age, I can always call them by their name or a nickname. They do not get offended when I do this, unlike my grandparents. Also, if my peers cooking is truly terrible, I know I can tell them and they will appreciate the honesty, as they favor the truth over politeness. Occasionally, I will revise my friends work for school and I am always honest no matter what. If I stood by the societal standard of speaking with only polite speech, they would never get real feedback on their work. Also, allowing us to truly speak our minds around one another. This allows us to become closer as there is no formality we must go around in our conversations. My generation, as seen by my friends and I, no longer have a need to censor ourselves in the pursuit of being polite. Therefore, it has slowly become outdated as most now favor honesty over politeness. 

In honesty, it is not hard to see the importance polite speech has within society; however, one must realize the true detriment it has towards society and its ability to foster false conversations and its outdated nature. To move on and create a comfortable environment for all, we must not hold everyone to such a standard of polite speech and allow for less formalities.