Prithee the addressee, as in "if it please you," "prithee" accompanies a request which addresses itself to the threat of being answered in the negative, as though the request were against the addressee's wishes. Stated otherwise, the word "please" suggests that the person being addressed is willing to comply with the request, whereas the word "prithee" suggests that he or she is not willing. This switch from stating the speaker's contrary desire to stating the speaker's wish not to impose signaled a cultural shift in the English-speaking world in which politeness became stated negatively rather than positively. Wider repercussions are observable
Fossil word words were formed from other languages, by elision, or by mincing of other fixed phrases. Fossil word A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom. Fossil status can also occur for word senses and for phrases. An example for a word sense is 'navy' in 'merchant navy', which means 'commercial fleet' (although that sense of navy is obsolete elsewhere). An example for a phrase is 'in point' (relevant), which is retained in the larger phrases 'case in point' (also 'case on point' in the legal context)