Morrison Jeremiah was being polite and courteous. He is an English Gentleman.
Ah.
This is where forums---conversation via written word only---goes in the ditch.
You are now (in a sense) defending what he said by presuming it was phrased in a way to side-step actual meaning while implying a different meaning.
While offering his upbringing / station in life / comportment as the underlying reason for having done it in such a stylized, indirect way.
The problem now is establishing how you can be sure of all that (mind reading? PM? telephone call? ) to offer it as anything more than a guess.
See how messy this gets? And how quickly?
Take it from an old guy: The adage
"Say what you mean, and mean what you say" makes more sense with every passing day. It's not only more efficient (by far), but easier. (Not many things in life are both).
You'll piss people off from time to time for doing so, but at least everyone involved will understand WHY the pissed-off-edness came about, and not have to dissect, analyze, and make treacherous presumptions when trying to reverse engineer what was said vs. what was meant.
Sasquatch is a good example of someone who understands all this. Until he was 25 or so, all he could do was either smile or growl. He either pet humans gently on the head or ate them.
After a while both he and those around him became stressed by that, so he went to school and got an advanced degree in Serious Thoughtful Stuff.
Now everyone understands what he says and what he means... because they are the same thing.
My point? In the words of Mister Lee,
"The desk was firm on the shaky floor. The couch cover and hall drapes were blue."
Note the slight over center position of the stem. Did a previous owner put excessive pressure when closing it?
