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WAITING for a train in of Dublin's southside DART stations some months ago, I watched some work men renewing those yellow lines to warn people to keep away from the edge of the platform. The notice had contracted by 20 per cent since the last time they'd painted it. You could still make out the faint trace of the old message on the concrete: "Please keep behind this line". The new notice read, "Keep behind this line". The "please" had been abolished.

There are several possible explanations. One is that the "please" was a casualty of cuts in public spending. A more prosaic explanation might be that the old message was proving ineffective. Maybe it was felt that the "please" rendered the message more like a request than a regulation. "Please keep behind this line" almost invited the response, "Thank you for the advice, but I think I'll stand here anyway". "Keep behind this line" does not allow any space for argument.