[General] Is "spare your precious time" a formal English writing?

[JamesStephan]

Hi all,

Is "spare your precious time" a formal English writing?

This context is:

I ask for my advisor's help to explain a difficult academic question. But he is pretty busy. And I want to be as polite and formal as possible when sending him an email to ask for his help. But I am not sure if it is appropriate to say "I wonder if you can spare your precious time and give me an explanation on this problem."

Thank you so much.

Regards,
JamesStephan

 

[Tdol]

I wouldn't use it- it could possibly sound a bit sarcastic to some people. How about something like I would be very grateful indeed if you give me an explanation of ...?

 

[emsr2d2]

I don't have a problem with the idea of "spare some time" but I agree with Tdol that it might sound sarcastic with "precious". I'd go with "I wonder if you could spare some time to explain ..."

 

[BobK]

I agree about the possibility of being mistaken for sarcasm. Spare collocates strongly with time, and precious collocates strongly with time, but this BNC query shows that "spare * time" is used chiefly when * is an expression of quantity (some, more, any...) or just the.

b

PS re sarcasm:The Dylan song Don't think twice it's all right has a good example of this at the end of the last verse - about 2'50" in, if you don't have enough precious time to listen to it all [no accounting for taste].

 

[JamesStephan]

I wouldn't use it- it could possibly sound a bit sarcastic to some people. How about something like I would be very grateful indeed if you give me an explanation of ...?

Hi Tdol,

Yes. It may sound a little bit sarcastic.

I appreciate your response.

J.S.

 

[JamesStephan]

I don't have a problem with the idea of "spare some time" but I agree with Tdol that it might sound sarcastic with "precious". I'd go with "I wonder if you could spare some time to explain ..."

Thank you for the reply.

J.S.

 

[JamesStephan]

I agree about the possibility of being mistaken for sarcasm. Spare collocates strongly with time, and precious collocates strongly with time, but this BNC query shows that "spare * time" is used chiefly when * is an expression of quantity (some, more, any...) or just the.

b

PS re sarcasm:The Dylan song Don't think twice it's all right has a good example of this at the end of the last verse - about 2'50" in, if you don't have enough precious time to listen to it all [no accounting for taste].

Hi BobK,

Thanks for the reply.

J.S.