Why is it that flight crews use (overuse) the word "do" in their announcements? As in: "We do hope you enjoy your flight" or "We do ask that you take your seats". Is this something they all learn to say at flight crew camp to emphasize a point, or is it just some weird subconscious copycat habit like when you start using the same speech mannerisms as your roommate?

I do hope that someone can enlighten me...

I do agree. I do find it most annoying - it do seem rather patronising.

Fortunately it seems only to be a habit amongst hardened native speakers, and I (do) fly mostly with Asian airlines.

Thinking about it again... I suppose there's some kind of implication going on. Ie they DO ask X, Y, Z as some kind of an exception to a general rule they don't want to put you out (ie "Whilst we don't wish to impose or put you out, we DO ask etc etc.)

That's why I think its odd.... Because I don't need to be told that I'm free to do stuff that I'm free to do anyway... and that's what they are doing albeit by implication rather than expressly. They are trying to get some credit to offset the supposed imposition on me to comply with certain rules/requests. But the "credit" is phoney, and the "imposition" is not really an imposition at all. So its a charade - and its patronising of them to expect me to swallow it.

Often the superfluous "do" is an implicit recognition that you think they're full of it.

We know that you think we're indifferent about it, but we do hope you enjoy your flight.

I'll bet the flight crews got the idea by listening to the conversations of married people.

Don't forget the "at this time" prefix/suffix.

Perhaps it's a language structure that's more in line with other western languages. The English conjugation of verbs is thought to be confusing and complex compared to, say, French. Maybe adding "do" allows it to be more understandable by someone who doesn't natively speak English.

(I don't actually think this is why they do it... but it is a possibility if that's how their scripts read.)

I dunno, the use of the almost-superfluous emphatic do does do something.

I wonder how many FA announcement cliches you can put in a single sentence. Here's a starter:

For security reasons, we *do* request that you deplane at this time.

For security reasons, we do request that, following the last and final call, you proceed at this time to the gate area for immediate and prompt boarding, or we will proceed to offload your luggage.

i've never noticed, but now it's driving me crazy.

American Airlines have extended this to include the expression "At This Time" in the bulk of their announcements (also commented on above).

Sometimes we have amused ourselves counting how many times it gets into the pre-flight announcements; often up to 10 times.

"We ask you to take your seats At This Time"

"We ask you to fasten your seatbelts At This Time"

I can only assume that you agree with George Carlin on this point, and not the other way around.

Kudos to the OP for this post. I have often noticed it- on US airlines only- and find it quite an annoying affectation. I'm quite sure it's not part of the script-

It's like people (police officers and sports team coaches are notorious abusers) using the word "individual" rather than just saying "person" or "man" or "woman." I think they think it makes them sound more intelligent or articulate, when the opposite is the case.

hurlimann

Any insight from FAs who may be reading this?

deplane... there's another one. ... is deplane? can I decar or debus? and what of the Dutch, who use the word "De" for THE in some sentences?



Anyway, I think the WHOLE "DO" problem stems from a bug on MY old PC. You see, when I am in MS Word and I type anything all using the word, "TO," it actually changes it to "DO" because of some problem no one has yet to figure out! I have to go back and do a very manual spell check on the entire document and now I have come to the conclusion it's almost better to write the letter in the simple text NOTEPAD program and then copy/paste it into Word for a final spell check!

Of course, I have a new PC now but it was rather comical and annoying all at the same time. Maybe THEY got it from me? hehehehe

(Yeah, I'm the center of the universe too!)

MM