Can 方 be taken out of some sentences without changing the meaning?

Question

I've often found 方 to be quite abstract sometimes, and I've been thinking about it more when I saw this:

……杉山さんって、こういう感じの方なんですね……

To me it looks like the sentence would mean exactly the same thing if I took out の方 - "I can say with confidence that it feels like Sugiyama san"

Is this true or is 方 actually changing something here?

Answer 1

First, let's clarify two things:

1. The 方 in “こういう感じの方” is read かた, which is the polite way of saying person.
2. The 〜ね at the end is important in understanding the tone of this sentence. 〜なんです is a confident/declarative statement, while 〜なんですね effectively dampens the assertiveness in the tone. Think of the difference between saying “It's a friendly cat” versus something like “You could say it's a friendly cat” or “So it's a friendly cat, huh?”.

Back to your example,

1. 杉山さんって、こういう感じの方なんですね
   Sugiyama-san is this kind of person, huh.
2. 杉山さんって、こういう感じなんですね
   Sugiyama-san is like this, huh.

Since the topic is clearly Sugiyama-san, a person, you can remove the の方 without altering the basic meaning of the sentence.

The only difference is that, in sentence #1, there is more information to be gleaned about the relationship between the speaker and Sugiyama-san. Since the speaker is referring to Sugiyama-san using the polite [方]{かた}, you can infer that there is quite a bit of polite distance between the two people. I would say that this distance is greater than what can be assumed from just the use of 〜さん.

So while sentence #2 could be about any kind of two people, you can assume from sentence #1 that the speaker and Sugiyama-san are not two classmates in high school, for example.

Answer 2

The situation could be the following.

杉山さんは、もう約束{やくそく}の時間{じかん}を３０分{ぷん}も過{す}ぎているのに、今{いま}私{わたし}に、SMSで「今日{きょう}は行{い}けなくなった」とだけ知{し}らせてきましたよ。杉山さんって、こういう感{かん}じの方{かた}なんですね。

"方" in "杉山さんって、こういう感じの方なんですね" always "方{かた}," because "〇〇さんって、こういう感じの方{かた}なんですね" or "〇〇さんって、そういう感じの方{かた}なんですね" is a common phrase expressing criticism against a person without making a firm critic statememt.

If you'd like to make it clear, you can say "〇〇さんって、失礼{しつれい}な方{かた}なんですね" or "〇〇さんって、礼儀{れいぎ}を知{し}らない方なんですね."

You can say "杉山さんって、こういう感じなんですね" insted of "杉山さんって、こういう感じの方なんですね."

Both are interchangeable. I feel the first sentence skip "の方" or "の人{ひと}."

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ちなみに、人についての話題で"方{ほう}"を使う例は以下です。

オフィスにて、In the office,

"杉山さんの机の上は書類だらけだ。杉山さんはアバウトな方{ほう} or 方{かた}なんですね。"
Mr. Sugiyama has a pile of papers on his desk, he is not fussy about anything, isn't he?

This example sentence is just confusing. We can read "方" as not only "方{かた}" but also "方{ほう}."

If you read "アバウトな方{ほう}," in your mind there are two groups of person. One is the group of people who are fussy, the other is the gruoup of people who are not fussy. So you can say "He is a person who is not on fussy side. "side=方{ほう}"　←I'm not sure this is an appropriate English or not."