I (would) gladly accept your invitation.
magic...@gmail.com
I am hosting at home next Saturday," should I include the word "would"
in my affirmative answer?
"I would gladly accept your invitation."
OR
"I gladly accept your invitation."
Thank you.
Ben
cybercypher
The second is proper.
The person sending the invitation should actually be answered with
something on the order of "Please do invite me to the dinner party. I
will gladly accept if you do."
The invitation should say: "You are invited to a dinner party at my
home next Saturday".
The implication of "I would like to" is something like "but I can't
because ..." or "but I don't want to unless I know that you will
(not) accept the invitation". Poor critical thinking on the writer's
part. But that doesn't matter to most language users simply because
they hardly ever think about how they say what they say or whether
they say what they mean and mean what they say. And that includes
most native anglophones, including many of the cerebrally tumid who
populate this NG.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"Why I am a linguistic prescriptivist: Because I want my children to
understand what I write and say and I want to be able to understand
what they write and say. It's as simple as that. The less linguistic
continuity we demand of our fellow English speakers, the more we
insist that it's okay not to understand others. Where is the virtue
in that?" Anymouse.
Farhad
> When someone says to me, "I would like to invite you to a dinner party
> I am hosting at home next Saturday," should I include the word "would"
> in my affirmative answer?
When someone says "I would like to do something", he is saying in a
rather formal manner that he "wants" to do something. The combination
"would + like" is idiomatic.
The modal "would" without "like" has a totally different function.
English speakers use it for many purposes. One frequent use of it is,
inter alia, to talk about things that are hypothetical. For example,
when you say "I would accept your invitation", you are implying that
your accepting the invitation would realize only if there were some
preconditions met. But since they are not met, you can't accept it.
Therefore, in cases when you are talking about something that is
possible to realize, you should refrain from using "would".
Farhad
CDB
The invitation was made in person and not in writing, is that right?
If the person who made it is a friend or colleague, you can simply
reply, "Thank you; I'd love to," (or "I'd be delighted.") As others
have said, the use of the conditional is not strictly logical, but it
is a customary way of making the invitation more tentative and
therefore more polite: I would like to invite you, if you would be so
kind as to consider my offer. You can assume that he or she really is
inviting you to dinner, in spite of logic. It's perfectly
acceptable to reply in the conditional mode, as I suggested above.
Needless to say, it's supremely important to get the time and place
right, unless the situation is completely informal: it's customary to
repeat those details when accepting the invitation, so that your host
can correct them if necessary. "That was (time) at (day) at your
place?"
sage
> magic...@gmail.com wrote
>
>> When someone says to me, "I would like to invite you to a dinner
>> party I am hosting at home next Saturday," should I include the
>> word "would" in my affirmative answer?
>>
>> "I would gladly accept your invitation."
>>
>> OR
>>
>> "I gladly accept your invitation."
>
> The second is proper.
>
> The person sending the invitation should actually be answered with
> something on the order of "Please do invite me to the dinner party. I
> will gladly accept if you do."
>
> The invitation should say: "You are invited to a dinner party at my
> home next Saturday".
>
> The implication of "I would like to" is something like "but I can't
> because ..." or "but I don't want to unless I know that you will
> (not) accept the invitation". Poor critical thinking on the writer's
> part. But that doesn't matter to most language users simply because
> they hardly ever think about how they say what they say or whether
> they say what they mean and mean what they say. And that includes
> most native anglophones, including many of the cerebrally tumid who
> populate this NG.
>
"I would like to thank ... " is one of the commonest, daftest utterances
there is. It's the sort of thing I expect to hear followed by " ... but
I won't/can't because ..." . If you are going to thank someone, then get
on with it.
Cheers, Sage
Pouya D. Tafti
>"I would like to thank ... " is one of the commonest, daftest utterances
>there is. It's the sort of thing I expect to hear followed by " ... but
>I won't/can't because ..." . If you are going to thank someone, then get
>on with it.
My publisher does not seem to agree with you. They
improved/corrected a recent paper of mine by replacing `The
authors thank ...' with `The authors would like to thank
...'.
--
Pouya D. Tafti
p dot d dot tafti at ieee dot org
cybercypher
> [sage <sa...@allstream.net>]
>>"I would like to thank ... " is one of the commonest, daftest
>>utterances there is. It's the sort of thing I expect to hear
>>followed by " ... but I won't/can't because ..." . If you are
>>going to thank someone, then get on with it.
>
> My publisher does not seem to agree with you. They
> improved/corrected a recent paper of mine by replacing `The
> authors thank ...' with `The authors would like to thank
Your publisher is obviously an ass.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"It has come to my attention that my opinions are not universally
shared." Scott Adams.
R H Draney
>> improved/corrected a recent paper of mine by replacing `The
>> authors thank ...' with `The authors would like to thank
>
>Your publisher is obviously an ass.
Which they would no doubt correct to "Your publisher would obviously like an
ass"....r
--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"
Mike Lyle
> cybercypher filted:
>>
>> p.d....@ieee.org (Pouya D. Tafti) wrote
>>>
>>> My publisher does not seem to agree with you. They
>>> improved/corrected a recent paper of mine by replacing `The
>>> authors thank ...' with `The authors would like to thank
>>
>> Your publisher is obviously an ass.
>
> Which they would no doubt correct to "Your publisher would obviously
> like an ass"....r
Which reminds me. I think AUE's been seeing "X is an ass" a lot
recently. As the line has been coming from our American RRs, I've been
assuming it means "X is an arse"; but I always have to do a quick
mind-edit to get to that meaning, as my first reading is always
equivalent to "X is a donkey".
In Br-type E, it pretty well always seems to be the "ass" synonym rather
than the "donkey" one which is used to indicate stupidity. So I'm left
with a lingering uncertainty, since all the "X is an ass" declarations
seem, like the one above, to have been compatible with the BrE
interpretation.
--
Mike.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
cybercypher
AUTHOR: Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
QUOTATION: "If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is
a ass, a idiot."
ATTRIBUTION: Oliver Twist. Chap. li.
I always thought it was Samuel Johnson who said it. I've read on the
Net that it was Ben Johnson (sic) (the great English playwright Ben
Jonson, of course), and I can't find any evidence that anyone said it
before Mr Bumble did.
sage
> [sage <sa...@allstream.net>]
>> "I would like to thank ... " is one of the commonest, daftest utterances
>> there is. It's the sort of thing I expect to hear followed by " ... but
>> I won't/can't because ..." . If you are going to thank someone, then get
>> on with it.
>
> My publisher does not seem to agree with you. They
> improved/corrected a recent paper of mine by replacing `The
> authors thank ...' with `The authors would like to thank
> ...'.
>
Get a new publisher, sez I.
Cheers, Sage