The phrase “at this time” has the unusual attribute of being ubiquitous in air travel and uncommon everywhere else. It sounds like the soft scolding of an authoritarian repression that hides its merriment at dictating when certain liberties can and cannot be exercised by cloaking itself in an innocent politeness and collectively addressing the passengers from a plane of existence far removed from the one they know. From another angle, it’s the sort of phrase one would expect a non-native English speaker to contrive from their diligent studies of this new, peculiar language and its grammar; fitting, then, that it be spoken over the PA of such a symbol of international commerce as an airplane.

Many occupations concerned with serving the public share the oft-overlooked peculiarity that their respective job description’s list of sought abilities may not even mention the abilities most prized by the public. Flight attendants are a prime example. The FAA, an organization that takes the heat for every aluminum-tube-falling incident involving the U.S., can be counted on not to relax regulations governing the safety speech before every take-off; likewise with equivalent organizations with respect to their regions of responsibility elsewhere in the world.

Meanwhile, nearly everyone on any given plane has been on a plane before; or, if they haven’t, they’re probably either too young or too enamored with the experience to care much for talentless illustrations on a laminated tri-fold. The result is that, as the plane is taxiing along morosely, roughly zero passengers are obliging the request that they extract the safety card from the seat back pocket and examine it. For many, the flight attendants thought most highly of are those who sprint through their obligatory recitation with nary a pause to inhale. Noticeably absent from flight attendant job descriptions, then, is that having the skill to speak with the speed of an auctioneer is a plus.