Politeness and distance

Politeness in Spanish is less a matter of usted than of detours: a wish becomes a question, a request a conditional, a refusal a regret. This list gathers the formulas that open that distance — from si no es molestia, which asks for almost nothing, to me veo en la obligación de, which announces that something unpleasant is on its way — and the ones that close it again. One of them deserves a second look, because English does something strange here. Reconocer el descuido is to own up to a lapse, a thing left undone. The English word for that lapse is « oversight » — and « oversight » is also the word for supervision, for the committee that watches over a department. One noun with two meanings facing away from each other: the thing nobody watched, and the watching itself. Spanish keeps el descuido and la supervisión well apart.