Sentence examples for politeness from inspiring English sources

In its exquisite politeness, just as in its phenomenal economic success and its incomprehensible politics, Japan has long seemed different from all other countries.

"Everybody else in the band is madder than Jon," explains Gleeson between takes, in the character's middle-class English accent (if he slips into his native Irish between takes, his vowels start going, he explains), "but underneath the politeness, he has ambition.

I thought, out of politeness really, that we should show the vicar.

(Unless it's about dance-trained stage-school brats taking part in Strictly. Come on!) I have, in general, never encountered anything but politeness and friendliness, from Gallifrey Base to Second Life (I assume. I have not been recently. It's probably an apocalyptic cannibal survivalist wasteland out there these days) – until I outed myself as a no.

In Truffaut's 1968 film Baisers volés, Delphine Seyrig explains to her young lover the difference between politeness and tact.

Hegarty listens to these croaking, rasping excuses with blank-faced politeness, before saying firmly at the end: "No, yours definitely sounds like an infection," adding more kindly, with a tap to his throat: "Perhaps a bit of asthma in there?" It's a "closed" rehearsal for The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, but I'm briefly allowed to watch Antony and the cast.

In a word, politeness – one of those Japanese concepts with no direct translation into English.

When, after several awkward seconds the braver in the room stood up, they engendered an ovation born of politeness, not enthusiasm.

It's easy for others to pretend they know you and out of politeness we can find ourselves in a tricky situation.

But our tourist curiosity was punished as the service went on... and on, and we sat, frozen by British politeness, for two hours, unable to leave, while the sun blazed outside.

He found literary theory and academic jargon as phoney as politeness.