It may be related to power differentials: when talking to peers or superiors people tend to use more deferential and roundabout phrasing. When talking to an underling, communication can be much more terse.
That's one of the things I find weird about English. Just saying what you want in a straightforward way is considered "rude" or "aggressive", and you have to add tons of those bullshit expressions like "please", "would you mind", typically at least two or three of them in a single sentence. What a waste of time....
Sorry for sneaky edit :-)
- Tomorrow.
- I'll give examples tomorrow.
- I have good examples to give you tomorrow.
...Do you find the "extra" language is equally required in speech and text? I also wonder if there is a certain conservation of syllables across languages, maybe related to how fast our brains can process speech? And in some languages the syllables are needed for comprehension, and in other language there are "filler" words?
If you want something, go and find it. If you want someone else to provide it for you, ask. Or tell. But don't posit a problem and expect someone to fix it for you.
As a teenager, I stayed in Spain for a month living with a host couple, and I remember the wife telling me that I said "por favor" too much (like asking "could you please pass the salt?" at dinner) asked for things too much, and generally acted overly polite. For example, it's apparently more common in Spain to order food at restaurants like "Give me a coffee (please)" and not "I would like a coffee, please". All this was in Spanish; I'm just translating what we said into English.
"Hand me that." An order, a directive, as one might issue to a servant.
"Hand me that, please?" A question, a request, a favor, as you might ask of someone you respect.
You do have a point, though. Passive voice can be a lot more wordy / harder to parse, but people often use it to be more polite sounding.
Do English speakers generally not use "please" and "thank you" with servants?
That said, I have absolutely seen people be excessively polite in a way that comes off as non-genuine, but they are always ESLs. I assume they just have a hard time seeing the line, so they try to play it safe.
I wonder if on a subconscious level people give me the too-aggressive feedback for the same reason women get that feedback: I’m an immigrant and acting too much like an equal.