By the way, I asked my girlfriend about the original sentence and whether you could use such a construction in a situation without the maid. For example, the alternative situation I gave where teacher A tells you that teacher B is going shopping wondering if you need anything. Her take on it was that probably nobody would think twice if you said it that way, and 'since the end of the sentence is keigo it's probably fine.' But also she said that she herself wouldn't phrase it that way.

Tzadeck Wrote:

Arupan Wrote:>> Tzadeck
My thesis has a lot to do with politeness so don't get me started there

I could be wrong. I also live in Kyoto, which sort of has its own brand of politeness.

I don't think any of us can claim to say what "most Japanese" do. We don't have anywhere near the necessary experience in the language; even native speakers aren't always correct when they make such claims.

But there may be some mixups here because there's a difference between requesting that someone else do something for you, and asking for permission -- the latter often uses let-causatives, the former doesn't.

In Southern Shikoku, with requests to strangers the ○○○していい seems to be commonplace, but requests with the causative don't seem too common place, unless a superior is requesting a junior. Except, my boss always asks me if i can fix his computer with something like "ランドムクォツ君がパソコンを直せるかな" while staring at me.

Tzadeck Wrote:By the way, I asked my girlfriend about the original sentence and whether you could use such a construction in a situation without the maid. For example, the alternative situation I gave where teacher A tells you that teacher B is going shopping wondering if you need anything. Her take on it was that probably nobody would think twice if you said it that way, and 'since the end of the sentence is keigo it's probably fine.' But also she said that she herself wouldn't phrase it that way.

Since no one else has asked this question beforehand, it may not be a very good one, but why couldn't the kind of phrasing used to describe someone (person A) requesting a maid (person M) to do something at the request of a third party (person B) not be equally relevant in other situations where persons A and B have authority over person M? Such as:
- A and B being military officers, both outranking person M.
- A and B being members of the board of directors of a large company and person M being a secretary.