UKH

is it just me, or does putting 'polite notice' at the top of an email or sign instantly make it anything but?

Our kids school has taken to doing that recently and (besides the fact that it's impossible to find any info as every email subject is just 'polite notice') I thought the recipient usually gets to decide what's polite, not the sender..

/rant

I have a feeling that some are trying to pretend it's a police notice. Often takes a second glance to be clear.

Announcing your own politeness, lack of bigotry or any other favourable trait usually means just the opposite is about to happen. It is almost as annoying as emails that start 'just a gentle reminder' - it's just a reminder!

Any comment beginning "No offence, but..." is virtually guaranteed to be knowingly offensive.

That's definitely the origin of the phrase "polite notice", on sign posts not on emails though.

I've seen a horse rider wearing a hi-vis jacket with the word "Polite" on the back, blue and silver checked reflective stripes, the whole bit.  That didn't strike me as particularly polite, but it's probably very effective at getting some drivers to slow down a bit and give them more space on the road than they otherwise would have.

"I'm not being funny but... "

On jackets and the like definitely (horse riders are particularly prone to this) but seems odd for a school. Unless its a borstal.

I do absolutely hate those. Pretty much guaranteed to make me ignore them for a bit longer on principle.

Yes, I was considering signs, but in many text documents anything with notice at the top is verging on officious:  notice of prosecution,  final notice etc.

In the school context, teachers and admin staff have to cope with some pretty aggressive characters at times and perhaps here is it for them, so that the object of any complaint can point out that it was only 'a polite notice', perhaps avoiding the accusation of a bossy order. 

More generally how we view and use words, and the emotions they invoke are quite individual and catering to everyone is a hard task.

I’ve seen that one a lot but I think it falls into a different category; I think the choice of the word “polite” in that case has nothing to do with its actual meaning and everything to do with getting as close to impersonating a police officer as possible without actually committing a chargeable offence.

I'd be tempted to provide feedback.

The subject heading explains what the subject of the email is.

Any passive-aggressive 'polite notice' claims can be made within the body of the email.

"With all due respect,..." is my favourite, unless someone is using it to me 🙂

 Car parking drama?

For sure.  I agree completely it's a different thing, but with the similar origins I think. 

The original "polite notice" signposts were also trying to look like something they weren't (though I've no idea whether putting up a bogus "police notice" sign was ever an offence), and I'm convinced that they're how this silly phrase entered the language.

Obviously an email heading is an entirely different thing, but both invoke an image in my mind of the same kind of pompous, self-important but slightly ridiculous Captain Mainwaring character behind them.

No. PE has been moved to a Tuesday and sausages will be unavailable for 3 weeks due to supply issues. Also, do not lean on the Perspex window in reception, it apparently wasn’t designed with the local demographics in mind..

It is, and it's apparently incredibly effective at stopping dickheads doing close passes at high speed.

Spotted a bloke in a yellow hi-viz with “Insecurity” on the back.

This actually seems to achieve the opposite!

There was a study done by Prof Walker, a psychologist at Bath who does a lot of work into attitudes to cycling, with cyclists in varying attire and measuring the distances car passed; Lycra gear, normal street wear, both genders, a “Polite” tabard and finally a Police Monitoring” one. 
Only 2 were any different from average: the police one for more distance, and the Polite one got less! Presumably some indignant drivers felt tricked and did a conscious or unconscious punishment pass.

This was actually a follow up to a similar study by the same person a few decades earlier, which showed normal street wear and female riders (actually the 6ft guy himself in dress and wig) got more space on average.

His conclusion from the updated study was that we’ve become a less tolerant driving nation that only changes behaviour due to the threat of personal negative consequences.

I kinda can believe that.  Not the 'punishment pass' thing which is incredibly stupid behaviour and an absolute dick move whatever the circumstances - but passive aggressive signage (as opposed to a genuinely polite notice, which never has either of those words on it) very much brings out the worst in me so I can kind of see it.

Maybe the reaction it gets is different when it's a horse rather than a bicycle, dunno.

It's depressing but not surprising if we've become a less tolerant 'driving nation', we've become a less tolerant nation and of course driving has been dragged into the whole 'culture war' bullshit just lately what with nonsense like the actual government saying that bus lanes are 'woke' now ffs.

You need to register a complaint.

The subject of your email could be "Polite Notice", which would be satisfying. Or it might need to be "RE: polite notice". You can choose

or "FOI ****". With a decent selection of swearwords throughout.

Or, to retain the spirit of the original "Polite Notice Re: Polite Notice" ?

(I agree, BTW, with the general feeling that a "polite notice" comes across as anything but)

I think I should just go with ‘notice’ to avoid hypocrisy. Or possibly ‘subject goes here’?

Purchasing a laminator should require a basic English test.

Looking at this from the other end, as an occasionally obliged writer of notices (for work purposes), it is hard not to end up doing this, when despairing at the general arsewittery of people left to their own devices in public-ish places. 
Ultimately the trick seems to be to realise that people rarely actually read signs anyway, and the purpose of them is to have been written, rather than achieve any meaningful effect.

Perhaps there is that, but also I think you need to bear in mind that contrary to what you might believe most people aren't arsewits most of the time.  It seems that way because confirmation bias is a thing and the arsewittery is overwhelmingly what gets your attention.

(If genuinely everybody does something ridiculous in your quasi-public space then you really should consider that it's the design of the space, not human nature, that is to blame.)

If you write the sign as if you're addressing a bunch of arsewits what happens is that the arsewits will probably not read it, or ignore it, and just carry on and do whatever they were going to do. 

Meanwhile the reasonable people who do read your sign will feel rather insulted, but will probably comply with whatever your sign is asking of them anyway albeit perhaps slightly resentfully. 

And then there's another group of individuals who are capable of being perfectly nice and reasonable people or arsewits depending on their mood, will have their attitude affected by yours when you wrote the sign and may consciously or unconsciously decide to become the arsewit you're treating them as more or less out of sheer spite.  (I'm one of those I'm afraid.)  It's surprising how often your expectation of people tends to be self-fulfilling.

For example here is a genuinely polite notice: "Please don't allow your dog to foul my garden."

I saw that and felt a good deal of sympathy with the writer, clearly they've spent too much time picking up dogshit from their garden and unfortunately they're on a popular dog walk route and some dog owners are undoubtedly arsewits who will continue to offend.

However, I also saw a similar sign that was not polite a while ago - it had clearly been written by someone who'd let their frustration get the better of them.  Understandably perhaps.  I don't know how the passing dog walkers felt about that (arsewit or otherwise), but I saw it and felt no sympathy whatsoever.

I can't remember how it was phrased exactly now, which is a bit of a shame, because it was spectacular!  I was so offended by it despite not even having a dog that I actually contemplated curling one out on their lawn myself.

It’s kind of simple. Either just write ‘notice’ at the top, or just simply write ‘please do not sh1t in the woods, we can’t bear it’, as it’s not really necessary to put the word ‘notice’ on something that is clearly a notice.. 

Hm..  on this topic - and speaking of "depressing but not surprising" - here's something that popped up this morning:  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/10/shift-from-15-minute-cities...

Ha! You're right of course, that really most people are fine, and it's just the select few who make everybody seem hateful. 
As well as trying to arrange things so ridiculous behaviour isn't directly encouraged, a good deal of the problem is just getting worked up by things unnecessarily. It's hard to resist the urge to feel that, by not reacting, 'They' win, but on the whole it's probably for the best.