How we got please & thank you [Article]

Polite fictions (also known as lies) are behind the two most often used words in the English language. Discover the history of these two impostors

The habit of always saying “please” and “thank you” first began to take hold during the commercial revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — among those very middle classes who were largely responsible for it. It is the language of bureaus, shops, and offices, and over the course of the last five hundred years it has spread across the world along with them.