P 51 Please (see also thank you) That magic word 'please' ought to be spoken more often. -- Lydia Ramsey, "'Please' Takes Abruptness and Demand Out of Requests," Savannah Morning News (2002) Mystique: "'Say the magic word.' Who among us can't remember that command? We heard it as children; we repeat it as adults. The word 'Please,' is, in truth, a magic word. It was magic to us as children because it transformed inaction into action. Our request was issued, and nothing happened. Then, either through demand or memory, we said the magic word and the arrested world came alive. As adults we hear the appeals of youngsters, and we reply, 'Say the magic word.' We sometimes surprise ourselves with the strength of our position and fully realize that we are quite prepared to deny the request if it is not accompanied by, 'Please.'"10 Of course, not everyone finds the word please to carry enough mystique to be used as a magic word during a performance of legerdemain. A Web diarist who goes by the name Philomedy has this to say on the matter: "In my experience, a magician has never said 'please' and made the woman reappear. Ali Baba didn't say 'Open Please.' There is nothing magic about it. If I ask 'What's the colorful word?' you would not say 'table.'"11 Facts: An enchanted doorknocker shaped like a gargoyle in Terry Pratchett's novel Mort (1987) requires his own version of "open sesame" (the word please) to allow someone to pass. Variations and Incantations: • Please please please please disappear -- John Cassidy, The Klutz Book of Magic (1989) • Please? Pretty please? Sim Salabim? Hocus Pocus? Open Sesame? Amen? -- Uqm.stack.nl/forum (200 ) • Pleathe "'Pleathe!' she lisped, her face so radiantly sure that no one could be hardhearted enough to resist the magic appeal of that word, that he could not disappoint her. 'The little witch!' he exclaimed. 'She could wheedle the fish out of the sea if she'd say please to 'em that way. But how that honey- sweet tone and the yells she was letting loose awhile back could come out of that same little rose of a mouth, passes my understanding.'" -- Annie Fellows Johnston, Georgina of the Rainbows (1916) • Pliss "'Yes, yes, hurry, come!' His eyes moved from the impassive face of Emerson to the equally inexpressive countenance of Emerson's son, and in 10 John A. Taylor, Notes on an Unhurried Journey (1991) 11 Philomedy.JoeUser.com (2005)