[typeOnegative]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Anyhoos, thank you Threepio.

Saturday Night Live fan you must be .... (may the farce be with you).

Guys stick to 'anyway'. For my sake at least.

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by abhilash_iv

Hi All,

Here comes my next shot:
What is the most polite way to say, "You will not be able to do it"
The sentence has to be polite, but should stress the point that in no way he can do it. (No doubts, mights etc)

Regards

Do you want to say that he will not be allowed to do it?
e.g. You will not be able to use your cellphone onboard the aircraft

or that he is not capable of doing it?
e.g. you will not be able to climb Mt. Everest

[abhilash_iv]

Originally Posted by ajitkommini

Do you want to say that he will not be allowed to do it?
e.g. You will not be able to use your cellphone onboard the aircraft

or that he is not capable of doing it?
e.g. you will not be able to climb Mt. Everest

The second one is what I am looking for.

Regards

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by abhilash_iv

What is the most polite way to say, "You will not be able to do it"
The sentence has to be polite, but should stress the point that in no way he can do it. (No doubts, mights etc)

Regards

Originally Posted by ajitkommini

Do you want to say that he will not be allowed to do it?
e.g. You will not be able to use your cellphone onboard the aircraft

or that he is not capable of doing it?
e.g. you will not be able to climb Mt. Everest

Originally Posted by abhilash_iv

The second one is what I am looking for.

So you want the most polite way of telling someone he is inacapable of doing a certain action.

It's difficult, simply because you want to tell someone (in your opinion only) that he cannot do it.

A polite conversation:

Jack: I'm pretty sure I can blow balloons by sticking them into my ears.

I'm assuming you want to respond to this politely, you would HAVE to say I think, or I'm sorry

You: I'm sorry, I do not think you will be able to do that.
or
You: I do not think you can do that.

The reason you would have to use the "I think" is simply because you are commenting on his actions. Your judgement on what is he capable of doing, or not. What if he could indeed blow out air through his ears?
The only reason I feel you should use "I'm sorry, I think" is because you want the most polite way.
Otherwise a suitable impolite response might be :You're bloody bonkers mate, there's no way in hell you can do that.
-----------------------------------

In case 1, where you want to tell a person that it's not allowed, you would use "I'm afraid". This will express your polite regret that the action is not permitted.

Example

Jack: I think I'd like to walk around naked at India Gate!
You: I'm afraid that's not allowed Jack.

I'm afraid is a nice way to say "No Jacko, you cannot do that, understood?"

Here's another nice use of I'm afraid.

Jack: Sorry dude, I completely forgot to bring back your undies.
You: I'm afraid that is unacceptable to me Jack, please go back to your girlfriend's house and fetch them this very instant.

[kooldude]

hey sam if you don't mind i have a question regarding spoken english.Actually how do you differentiate with the voiced and the unvoiced "Th" sounds.I mean how do u come to know which is a voiced sound and which one is unvoiced.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Example

Here's another nice use of I'm afraid.

Jack: Sorry dude, I completely forgot to bring back your undies.
You: I'm afraid that is unacceptable to me Jack, please go back to your girlfriend's house and fetch them this very instant.

Like hell he's gonna do that.

[Thad E Ginathom]

IMHO the internet has given us a good way of putting something politely.

In my humble opinion, of course!

Kooldude... you mean like The, Bath and Thinking? As far as I know there's no rule. As with many examples of spelling in English, it just a case of knowing how to pronounce the word. I'd guess that is soft when at the end of a word like Bath.

[esteem_lover]

Th as in The applies only for The, This, That, There, for anywhere else, it is Th as in a bath, IMHO.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Bother, weather, neither....

[esteem_lover]

OK, maybe in all situations when there is a vowel coming after it. Any other word to beat this, thad ?

P.S. Nope
Thad
thud

[typeOnegative]

Originally Posted by abhilash_iv

Anyway, what I am looking for is the second case.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I worship the ground you walk upon etc etc.

Sam bahadur saheb,

Another one I am not too good at:

Is it: 'My wife and I' or 'My wife and me'?

I think the former is correct, but don't know why. Also when is it okay to use 'x and me'?

[Thad E Ginathom]

I suspect that the test is to leave the wife out of it!

He came to visit me.
He came to visit my wife and me

I plan to go sailing this weekend
My wife and I plan to go sailing this weekend

Why put the wife first? Not grammar so much as manners! Polite to put the other person first; that's what I was taught, at least.

...Just as I pressed submit, I realised the theory: I is subject of the sentence, Me is object.

I think Sam's learnt grammar much more recently than I...

[Sam Kapasi]

Well, as expected Thad's left little for me to answer on these 2 questions, from kooldude and Type O.
And he's spot on too!

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

OK, maybe in all situations when there is a vowel coming after it. Any other word to beat this, thad ?

Thailand.
We think it's pronounced as Thigh-land. It's not. Thank goodness for that.
It's a hard T (like Tie) but with an "H" sound. Like beginning with a hard T and then saying Hi.
And it's a beautiful place, for many reasons other than what you gentlemen are thinking about.

[kooldude]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Well, as expected Thad's left little for me to answer on these 2 questions, from kooldude and Type O.
And he's spot on too!
Thailand.
We think it's pronounced as Thigh-land. It's not. Thank goodness for that.
It's a hard T (like Tie) but with an "H" sound. Like beginning with a hard T and then saying Hi.
And it's a beautiful place, for many reasons other than what you gentlemen are thinking about.

If you don't mind i would like to contribute something.For the "th" coming in proper nouns the sound becomes a hard "T" as sam already told
For eg Thames is rightly pronounced as Tems in the queen's english
Another example being Thomas which is pronounced as Tomas.
I m still confused as for the Th sounds because for the daily words we use we can still figure out how to pronounce them but when we come across a new word then the problem arises

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by kooldude

If you don't mind i would like to contribute something.For the "th" coming in proper nouns the sound becomes a hard "T" as sam already told
For eg Thames is rightly pronounced as Tems in the queen's english
Another example being Thomas which is pronounced as Tomas.
I m still confused as for the Th sounds because for the daily words we use we can still figure out how to pronounce them but when we come across a new word then the problem arises

Here are a few nouns that are exceptions to your rule

1. Thad
2. Theodre
3. Thornhill