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What can I call a situation when people don't know each other well, but just say hello to each other our of courtesy, so to speak? Can it be called exchange of politeness by analogy with exchange friendly visits?

EDIT Google Ngram shows exchange of courtesies is in order of magnitude more common. The same goes for exchange of civilities. Does it mean what I am talking about?

StoneyB on hiatus
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olegst
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  • As you've obviously discovered, the "standard" form is an exchange of courtesies. The equivalent for politeness would need to be pluralised to politenesses** - which is credible, and does occur (rarely), but it's just too much of a mouthful to ever become "popular". Equally, although some native speakers might try to make it a little "easier" by going for the singular form, most others will recognize this as "wrong", so it won't catch on. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '15 at 17:06
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    *Exchange of pleasantries* is much more common than any of the above (according to Google Ngram and my own anecdotal experience). – GentlePurpleRain Jul 23 '15 at 17:16
  • If all they do is greet each other, and don't stop to chat, one could say they exchanged greetings. – TimR Jul 23 '15 at 20:05

2 Answers2

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No, in contemporary native English it is called "an exchange of pleasantries." A Google Ngram confirms my native knowledge that this is much more common in our time then "exchange of civilities."

Note the Oxford Dictionary:

Pleasantry:

(usually pleasantries)

An inconsequential remark made as part of a polite conversation: 'after an exchange of pleasantries, I proceeded to outline a plan'

More example sentences

And off we both went through the rain, pleasantries exchanged and honour satisfied.

After the introductions were done they exchanged pleasantries with Caitlyn who answered politely to all of them.

Johnson attempted to start conversation with some pleasantries but Bill was not very talkative.

The same dictionary gives one example sentence with exchanging civilities, but Google Ngrams confirms that pleasantries is much more common these days.

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Merriam Webster provides the following sentence as an example in its article on civility:

They greeted each other with the usual exchange of civilities.

I must say that the COCA corpus provides only one instance of "exchange of civilities" (none for "exchange of politeness").

Here's an interesting NGram:

enter image description here

There's also exchange of amenities - here's how it stacks against our record holder, courtesies:

enter image description here

CowperKettle
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    Yes, Google Ngram shows exchange of civilities is common nevertheless: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=+exchange+of+civilities&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cexchange%20of%20civilities%3B%2Cc0 – olegst Jul 23 '15 at 14:54
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    And - yes, Ngram doesn't find exchange of politeness either. Thank you for your answer. – olegst Jul 23 '15 at 14:56
  • @olegst - Thanks for the upvote, but it's usually a good strategy to wait a day or two before accepting an answer - this way, more answers will accumulate. I'm not a native speaker - they might come up with good example sentences. (0: – CowperKettle Jul 23 '15 at 14:57
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    The first word that popped into my head was niceties. "Let's dispense with the niceties and get down to business." – ColleenV Jul 23 '15 at 15:19
  • @ColleenV - Nice! You might post that! I also thought of "they exchanged formal greetings". – CowperKettle Jul 23 '15 at 15:19
  • I will think about it. I'm a little troubled that the dictionary definitions for nicety aren't quite the way I understand it in this context and I want to do some more poking around before I write an answer. – ColleenV Jul 23 '15 at 15:53
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    I'm not sure you really need to back up the substance of the answer (No, "exchange of politeness" isn't idiomatic) with frequency charts. It seems to me it simply reflects the fact that in the specific context. *pleasantry, courtesy, civility* are all countable nouns that can easily be pluralised. It's true *politenesses* does in fact exist, but it's a bit of a mouthful. And the singular doesn't work at all (we don't have an exchange of courtesy**), so native speakers just aren't likely to use either version. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '15 at 17:03
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    According to Google Ngram, *exchange of pleasantries* is many times more common than any of the above. – GentlePurpleRain Jul 23 '15 at 17:14
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    The OP should wait 2-3 days before selecting an answer, especially when the only answer is from a non-native speaker. –  Jul 23 '15 at 21:04