I thought… (polite) – English Grammar Profiler

English Grammar Profile C1 point 80 in the category of PAST is defined as:

past simple ‘I thought’ as a politeness structure to sound less direct.

However, there is no way to formally decide if this is actually a politeness construction.  If it is not, it might still contain B2 modal passive or B1 reporting structures.

For example:

We thought she would be killed.

If we follow the pattern of both the EGP examples:

I_P thought _PP _VM _VB

1 I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE 35535

I thought it would be a great opportunity to do a little experiment.

2 I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE 8003 3 I THOUGHT I WOULD BE 2141 4 I THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE 1616 5 I THOUGHT IT ‘D BE 1600 6 I THOUGHT I ‘D BE 1130 7 I THOUGHT IT COULD BE 940 8 I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE 854 9 I THOUGHT I MIGHT BE 735 10 I THOUGHT IT MAY BE 646 11 I THOUGHT HE WOULD BE 510 12 I THOUGHT IT SHOULD BE 465 13 I THOUGHT IT MUST BE 384 14 I THOUGHT THEY ‘D BE 360 15 I THOUGHT THEY MIGHT BE 344 16 I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE 264 17 I THOUGHT HE ‘D BE 259 18 I THOUGHT YOU ‘D BE 255 19 I THOUGHT WE WOULD BE 228 20 I THOUGHT HE MIGHT BE 222 21 I THOUGHT SHE WOULD BE 218 22 I THOUGHT I SHOULD BE 212 23 I THOUGHT I COULD BE 189 24 I THOUGHT WE ‘D BE 179 25 I THOUGHT IT WILL BE 124 26 I THOUGHT I MUST BE 118 27 I THOUGHT SHE MIGHT BE 110 28 I THOUGHT WE MIGHT BE 106 29 I THOUGHT YOU MAY BE 90 30 I THOUGHT THEY SHOULD BE 90 31 I THOUGHT SHE ‘D BE 81 32 I THOUGHT I MAY BE 80 33 I THOUGHT THEY MUST BE 65 34 I THOUGHT THEY COULD BE 61 35 I THOUGHT HE MUST BE 58 36 I THOUGHT HE COULD BE 58 37 I THOUGHT WE COULD BE 58 38 I THOUGHT THEY MAY BE 47 39 I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD BE 45 40 I THOUGHT WE SHOULD BE 44 41 I THOUGHT IT ‘LL BE 30 42 I THOUGHT SHE MUST BE 29 43 I THOUGHT HE SHOULD BE 29 44 I THOUGHT YOU MUST BE 23 45 I THOUGHT HE MAY BE 21 46 I THOUGHT YOU COULD BE 19 47 I THOUGHT I WILL BE 16 48 I THOUGHT SHE MAY BE 12 49 I THOUGHT IT CAN BE 11

50 I THOUGHT SHE COULD BE 11