if you please

Meaning

Phrase

• please

Origin

• The construction is unusual since the infinitive to please originally meant only “to satisfy”, not “to be satisfied”. One solution entails interpreting you as an object pronoun and please as a verb in the third-person singular subjunctive, such that if you please actually meant if it may please you. The according constructions if thee please, if him please, if them please, etc., are indeed attestable. However, if this approach is correct, the reinterpretation of the pronoun as the subject of the phrase must be very old as we also find if thou please and so on. A second hypothesis construes "if you please" as an intransitive, ergative form taken from if it pleases you which is a . Alternatively, if you please may be a bastardization of if you'd please, which is an abbreviation of if you would please be so kind, wherein please constitutes an adverb, not a verb.