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Two questions: 1. Can you please tell me? 2. Could you please tell me?

We can ask in both ways. I want to know the difference between (1) and (2)

Zahid
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2 Answers2

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2 is more polite.

Your examples are indirect requests or orders. The most direct and least polite version is "Tell me." That becomes more polite by adding "please", and that makes it a request rather than an order. Still more polite is to question whether some precondition for making the request holds true. Such preconditions are called "felicity conditions" in the literature, following J. L. Austin.

Here, a felicity condition for making the request is that the addressee be physically capable of fulfilling the request. If not, the request is infelicitous, so you can make the request more polite by asking whether he is capable of fulfilling it. Using "could" rather than "can" is still more indirect (and hence more polite) by raising the possibility that there might be some other hypothetical condition that would prevent him from telling you -- like being just about to stuff his mouth with a jelly donut, for instance.

Greg Lee
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  • It makes a lot of sense, but have you an outside authority supporting the claim that polite could arose in line with pre-evaluating the felicity condition (and so is a paraphrase of 'If it's possible, can ...'? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 14 '18 at 11:24
  • @EdwinAshworth, See https://books.google.com/books/about/Some_grammatical_correlates_of_felicity.html?id=d6I6nQEACAAJ – Greg Lee Feb 14 '18 at 11:29
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Simple answer: 1 - Informal 2 - More polite

Both are correct English. I'd use #1 with a friend, coworker. I'd use #2 with a stranger, boss, etc.

SonOfPingu
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