Politeness is a topic on which people have very different opinions (and “people,” in this case, includes linguistic scholars and researchers). According to one view, politeness is a superficial and dispensable adornment of human language, rather like icing on a cake. For others, including myself, it is a deeper phenomenon, something that human communicators would find it hard to do without.1 Many children learning their native language soon discover the importance of saying things like please and thank you, which are insisted on by their parents in the process of socialization— becoming “paid-up” members of human society. This reminds us that politeness is a social phenomenon—and yet a social phenomenon largely manifested through the use of language.