On Saying Please is a world-famous essay written by English author and journalist Alfred George Gardiner. In “On Saying Please” the author talks about the importance of being respectful and kind to others, and to do this we need to improve our language and add words like please and thank you to our dictionary.
On Saying Please By A.G Gardiner
Summary of On Saying Please By A.G Gardiner
If we start saying please and thank you to people for their work then it makes a good impression on them and sometimes it can make their day. On the other hand, if we talk to others in a rude way then it makes them feel insulted which can also spoil their mood.
The story of the essay starts with a young boy who works as a lift man in a city office. One day, the lift man threw a passenger out of his lift, due to which the company fined him because he misbehaved with the passenger.
A passenger comes in the lift and asks the lift man to take him to the upper floor, the lift man asks him to talk politely and use the word please. The passenger refuses to use the word please and again asks him to take him to the upper floor. The lift man gets angry and throws the passenger out of his lift.
This whole incident happened because of the word “please”. If the passenger used the word “please” while giving orders to the lift man, the lift man would not have got angry at him. Or even if the lift man had accepted the passenger’s misbehavior, this would not have happened.
We all should respect and follow the law because we cannot throw someone out of the lift just because he did not use please. If we start fighting for small things then there will be no peace in the world.
The author says that there are two types of problems in the world, one is physical like hitting someone whose pain does not last long, the other is emotional when someone attacks your self-esteem and its pain lasts much longer than physical pain.
The passenger attacked the self-esteem of the lift man, if the lift man had not pushed the passenger away then he would have kept thinking about this all day. So the lift man took out all his anger on the passenger so that his pain could be reduced.
After this, the author tries to explain to us by giving examples that sometimes we take out our anger on someone else. For example, our father is the head of our house, his boss scolds him in the office, father cannot argue with his boss so he vents his anger on mother, mother cannot argue with father so she vents her anger on her elder son and finally the elder son vents his anger on his younger brother. So this is how frustration flows from one person to another.
Our bad manners harm us more than our petty crimes. And there is no law for bad manners. No law asks you to use the word “please” and talk with a smile. No law asks you to talk politely to others. Please and thank you are two small words but if you start using these two words it will make your life easy and full of politeness.
You cannot expect someone to talk nicely to you while you talk badly to them. On the other hand, if you talk politely to others they will talk to you with more politeness and respect. In simple words, the author wants us to talk politely and respectfully to others, no matter who they are.
The author now gives us another example, this time he gives us the example of the famous English romance poet William Wordsworth. The author says that if Wordsworth can learn from the poor leech gatherer then why can’t we from you and me. There is a famous poem “The Leech Gatherer by William Wordsworth”, so our author is giving us the example of the leech gatherer. We should learn from other people no matter what position they hold. We can always learn something from someone.
Next, the author says that the world war has made people rude. People used to be kind and polite before but now people don’t trust each other and don’t care about the feelings of others. Nowadays almost everyone is bitter and corrupt, there are very few polite and kind people in the world.
We should eliminate our rudeness and develop politeness and kindness again. In the end, the author advises the lift man to talk politely to his passenger so that he feels embarrassed and realizes his mistake. This is because the lift man has harmed himself by pushing the passenger away.
If you had talked politely to the passenger, you could have taken your revenge from him. With your politeness and kindness, you could have embarrassed the passenger. “A humble person may lose material gains but spiritual victory is always with him”.
Next, the author gives us an example of a bus conductor. The author says that if the bus conductor treats his passenger politely then it makes the passenger’s journey good. On the other hand, the bad behavior of the bus conductor can make the passenger’s journey futile. Once upon a time, the author was traveling in a bus but he found out that he had forgotten his money at home so he told the bus conductor about it. The bus conductor did not feel bad and gave the author a ticket without money.
After some time, when the author touched his other pocket he found money in it so he immediately gave the money for his ticket to the bus conductor. With this small gesture of kindness, the bus conductor gained the author’s respect. The next day the author coincidentally travels in the same bus and this time the conductor accidentally put his shoes on the author’s feet but he immediately apologized to the author. Due to which the author did not feel bad.
हिन्दी 
English