I used to rarely say exactly what I meant if it could get me into conflict. Then I made a friend who is both kind and highly brusque, a combination that, as a Brit, I didn’t think was possible. It’s important to mention at this point that she is Dutch. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a conversation with a Dutch person, but they refuse to read between the lines. Very early on in our friendship, she explained, perhaps as a warning, that a British acquaintance had recently told her, “Sure, let’s do coffee sometime,” and when my friend replied, “OK, when?” the Brit started to malfunction. I found this story hilarious, while knowing that, if faced with this prompt, I also would’ve done the conversational equivalent of jumping out of the nearest window.

Everyone in the UK is aware that “let’s do coffee” is code for: “I’ll see you in another year at a mutual friend’s event where we’ll hug and suggest coffee again.” But why do we do this? Why can’t we be more Dutch? Let’s stop with this objectively bizarre façade of grace and manners.

She and I are not alone in observing how automatically Brits use these placeholder phrases (regrettably, the whole world knows this about us), but now science shows the extent of our cultural defect. New research reveals that British conversations are regularly littered with polite phrases that attempt to mask our resentment, frustration or irritation, or to avoid awkwardness. Said phrases include all the classics: “Sounds fun, I’ll let you know”, “I’m sure it’s just me,” and “No rush, whenever you have a minute.” If we were being clear, we’d give the direct translations: “Sounds dire – it’s a no from me,” “Ah, this is a you problem,” and “Do this immediately”.

Apparently, almost half of British people use these sorts of phrases regularly (about 14 times a day, which seems like both a lot and a gross underestimation). This intel comes from researchers at Trinity College London, who studied 2,000 adults to create a list of the polite-isms most used to avoid disagreements or social discomfort. I can only imagine that women say these more than men, too, since we’re socialised to avoid confrontations. Their next study should be on the feminised phrase, “No worries if not!”, which I hear from British women approximately a hundred times a day lest we ever be accused of propositioning anyone with a request.

As a culture, we’re known for being passive-aggressive, and I’m sure some people will read about this study and write our behaviour off as just that. But I really think that supposed passive-aggression is a red herring for the fact that we’re scared of arguments. We can’t abide anything that’s even edging into a grey area of tension that might escalate into conflict, so we pad our interactions out with all these nothingy comments and non-committal bargaining chips that keep us constantly in uncertain territory. Call it a kind of linguistic purgatory.

We think that being slippery in speech is a kindness to everyone involved, a necessary buffering to the edges of life – in fact, we’re lying. We are conversational weasels, sliding, dipping and diving in and out of what we truly mean, leaving everyone only half sure of our intentions. My Dutch friend said she doesn’t understand how any of us get anything done, and I totally agree that it’s a mystery. The only way we move forward at all is because we all know what these phrases really mean, so we can sometimes act accordingly – but rarely without mixed feelings and a lack of context about what is happening.

Yet words are words, and because we’re not being upfront when we use these ones, we’re shielded by their more literal translation. We have no intention of attending an acquaintance’s party, but if we say “Sounds great, if I can, I totally will!”, there’s a cowardly part of us that knows we are protected by that “out” we cleverly created for ourselves. We didn’t show up, so obviously: We couldn’t! As we very well suggested!

It’s amusing to me that in this research, 60 per cent of people said they hated (hated: a strong word!) being on the receiving end of these phrases. But these same people are still using them every day. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to just say what we mean and have the necessary arguments where we need to be having them? What’s the worst that could happen? An uncomfortable moment of real words and honest purposes colliding, and then the cleansing relief of the truth. But seriously, if that sounds too difficult, it’s no big deal. No worries if not. It’s probably just me.