Tricky Introductory Phrases
31 May 2001

      Over last weekend I had the occasion to take a couple of plane flights. On one, I noticed the following message in the lavatory:

      "As a courtesy to the next passenger may we suggest that you use your towel to wipe off water basin."

      We all have seen similar messages. I noticed a couple of interesting things about this one, however. First, and least significant, is that it is really a question even though it is written as a statement. The writer got thrown off by the length of the sentence, I think. Declarations that begin with "may," as in "May you live long and prosper," are wishes or benedictions, or even mild commands. "May" can also be used to begin questions, as in "May I have this dance?" When a question beginning with "may" gets long enough, it is easy to forget that it is really a question. This one should really have been written:

      "As a courtesy to the next passenger, may we suggest that you use your towel to wipe off the water basin?"

      Now you can begin to see the real problem with this sentence, an incompatibility between the introductory prepositional phrase and the independent clause that follows it. Introductory phrases do two things simultaneously, they (adverbially) modify the clause that they introduce, and they refer to the subject. A simple example would be, "With a song in his heart, the young man bounded outdoors and into the open air." Here, the "his" in "his heart" obviously refers to the young man.
      Now if you apply that rule to our sentence (as you must), you see that the "person" who is doing the courtesy in the first phrase must be the "we" of the main clause. Thus, this sentence really means that we are making the suggestion about the towel as a courtesy to the next passenger. That is wrong, of course, for the courtesy is (you) wiping with the towel rather than (us) suggesting that you wipe. If you are confused, consider the correct version of the sentence:

      "May we suggest that as a courtesy to the next passenger, you use your towel to wipe off the water basin?"

This version makes it clearer that the courtesy is you using the towel.
      A shorter version would be:

       "Please use your towel to wipe off the water basin as a courtesy to the next passenger."

      The shortest polite version might be:

      "Please wipe off the water basin when you are finished."

The potential problem with this version is that it does not stress that you should not take a fresh towel to wipe the basin. Thus, a better short version might be:

      "Please wipe the water basin with your towel when you are finished."

I suppose that the airline didn't want to write it this way because the delicate customers might think that the airline was bossing them around, and the airline didn't want them to run off to another airline because of that. I kid you not--why else would they write something as overly gentle as the original:

      "As a courtesy to the next passenger, may we suggest that you use your towel to wipe off the water basin?"

To my ears, this version is cloyingly sweet. I would have no problem with:

       "Please wipe off the water basin when you are finished,"

and I would praise the airline for being succinct.
      As you can see, I paid a lot of attention to this sentence while I was in the lavatory. At the end, I carefully memorized it so that I could reproduce it properly when I returned to my seat. (The alternative, returning to the washroom with pad and pencil, was a bit much, even for The Grammar Guy.) The irony of all this intense concentration, of course, was that in rushing back to my seat while I still remembered the whole sentence, I completely forgot to wash off the basin!

The Grammar Guy