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I saw an interesting argument recently that the reason you get this type of verbose language in corporate settings is that English lacks a formal tense. Apparen

I saw an interesting argument recently that the reason you get this type of verbose language in corporate settings is that English lacks a formal tense. Apparently it's much less common in languages that have one. But in corporate English the verbosity is used as a signal that you took time to produce the text out of respect for the person you're communicating with. This of course now gets weird with LLMs because I doubt it can last as a signal of respect for very long when it just means you fed some bullet points to ChatGPT.

adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
Seems like an easy hypothesis to test: Do languages with a formal tense have short corporate language?
- jdoliner 1y ago
  This is what the argument I read claimed, I haven't verified it.
- Ifkaluva 1y ago
  I’m a native Spanish speaker—all forms of written Spanish are more verbose than English, but the formal form is even more verbose. I remember notifications my school used to send my parents were hilariously wordy by English standards.
  - xdennis 1y ago
    > notifications my school used to send my parents were hilariously wordy There might be something else at play there. Public sector workers are notorious for wooden language. The example I hate the most is how they always say "number of" before every number like "we'll buy 10 new busses" becomes "we will commence the procurement of a number of 10 new buses".
    - Ifkaluva 1y ago
      Public sector workers? No, this was a private school.
- f1shy 1y ago
  I can speak 4 EU languages besides english. All 4 have special forms which are “formal” all 4 more verbose in the formal form. So if you ask me: “no”
rafram 1y ago
Japanese has polite forms, but business emails are anything but shorter than in English: https://shiftasia.com/community/choose-the-right-email-greetings/ https://shiftasia.com/community/choose-the-right-email-greet...
- foobiekr 1y ago
  Some of this has massively fallen away over the last thirty years. I spent a lot of time on Japanese linguistics, and the really formal tense usage was already falling away even in business context by the mid-1990s. I still find it fun to construct sentences that are practically gramnatical self-abasement but it's not common in actual spoken or written Japanese.

adgjlsfhk1 1y ago

Seems like an easy hypothesis to test: Do languages with a formal tense have short corporate language?

jdoliner 1y ago
This is what the argument I read claimed, I haven't verified it.
Ifkaluva 1y ago
I’m a native Spanish speaker—all forms of written Spanish are more verbose than English, but the formal form is even more verbose. I remember notifications my school used to send my parents were hilariously wordy by English standards.
- xdennis 1y ago
  > notifications my school used to send my parents were hilariously wordy There might be something else at play there. Public sector workers are notorious for wooden language. The example I hate the most is how they always say "number of" before every number like "we'll buy 10 new busses" becomes "we will commence the procurement of a number of 10 new buses".
  - Ifkaluva 1y ago
    Public sector workers? No, this was a private school.
f1shy 1y ago
I can speak 4 EU languages besides english. All 4 have special forms which are “formal” all 4 more verbose in the formal form. So if you ask me: “no”

rafram 1y ago

Japanese has polite forms, but business emails are anything but shorter than in English: https://shiftasia.com/community/choose-the-right-email-greetings/ https://shiftasia.com/community/choose-the-right-email-greet...

foobiekr 1y ago
Some of this has massively fallen away over the last thirty years. I spent a lot of time on Japanese linguistics, and the really formal tense usage was already falling away even in business context by the mid-1990s. I still find it fun to construct sentences that are practically gramnatical self-abasement but it's not common in actual spoken or written Japanese.