‘I’m afraid’ is commonly referred to as a ‘softener’, a linguistic tool used to soften the
tone of our content or convey politeness when we speak. Softeners often occur
at the beginning of a sentence to prepare us for bad news: I’m afraid, so sorry, to be honest, unfortunately, with all respect
·
To be honest, I think we need to rethink our marketing strategy.
·
With all respect, I don’t agree with what you just said.
2. Modal Verbs
Modal verbs
such as would, could, may or might are great for softening a request or giving a command:
- I want more time to finish this presentation.
·
I could use more time to finish
this presentation.
·
It would be nice to have more time
to finish this presentation.
·
Would you hand me the telephone,
please?
·
Could you hand me the telephone,
please?
3. Rephrasing
a Negative Sentence
Negative sentences can be
rephrased in order to make them appear more positive. Our very first sentence
can be made even more diplomatic in this way:
·
I’m afraid I haven’t been
able to finish the report yet.
Using ‘be able to’ here places emphasis on your
attempt to finish the report rather than your failure to do so.
The addition
of ‘yet’ at the end
of the sentence reinforces the idea that you are still working on the report
and it is almost completed.
Negative
sentences that are formed with can’t and won’t make the speaker sound
particularly negative and unhelpful and can often be rephrased with be able to,
or a similar expression:
·
I am not able to give you a better
deal than that.
·
I am unable to give you a better
deal than that.
·
I am not in a position to give you
a better deal than that.
Similarly, affirmative sentences
containing words with a negative meaning can be rephrased in order to soften
the message and achieve a more indirect effect:
- I am unhappy with this agreement.
·
I am not entirely happy with this
agreement.
·
I am not totally happy with this
agreement.
Here the
negative adjective unhappy is replaced with its positive counterpart happy,
modified with an adverb such as entirely, totally or completely, and the
sentence is changed to the negative form.
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