usageplease

Usageplease is a neologism used in online writing and documentation communities to request explicit attention to word usage and terminology. It functions as both a directive and a conversational cue to improve clarity and consistency in collaborative texts.

Origin and etymology: the term combines usage with please to emphasize politeness alongside a demand for correct usage. It emerged in informal forum and wiki discussions in the 2010s, often as a lighthearted way to anchor style edits within a thread and encourage careful terminology.

Usage and practice: typically used as a comment marker or tag attached to an edit or suggestion. A contributor might write: This sentence uses the word X in an unclear sense; please provide a usage note—usageplease. The goal is to prompt documentation of preferred senses, examples, or grammatical constraints rather than simple correction, helping editors maintain consistent terminology across the work.

Impact and reception: because it blends humor with guidance, usageplease is most common in communities that value precise terminology but discourage pedantry. It supports consistency across articles and helps editors learn the intended sense of terms, especially in technical or encyclopedic contexts.

See also and notes: related practices include style guides, usage notes, and editorial tagging systems. While not an official standard, usageplease appears as part of informal editorial culture in collaborative projects and may vary in form across communities.