[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Nagoyankee

お越し is the noun form of　お越しになる, which is an honorific form of 来る. 　This is the formal speech, not です or ます as so many members here seem to believe.

I'm stating for the fourth time on JF that です and ます aren't nearly as formal or polite that people seem to think. They are just "average". I don't care if I get ignored again. Somebody's gotta tell the truth.

The みなさん here are not the people waiting. They are the people coming to the concert.

Thanks for the correction about お越し, Nagoyankee. I'll back you up on the ます form stuff. The problem is that "formal" and "polite" mean the same thing to most youths in the US. Based on that fact, when we are taught ます-form is "polite," we often think of it as "formal."

I agree that it's neutral. I mean, you would speak to a stranger with ます-form. I think this is properly categorized as "polite." Of course it's not "formal," though!

I do admit that I probably make the mistake of swapping the two English words, although I try not to. I am aware of the difference even if my English-speaking mouth and fingers ignore the difference sometimes.

I remember when learning forms like 召し上がる and 迎える and お作りになる and stuff like that. Everyone got so confused for a long time about how you could use "formal" language without making it "polite." In other words, we all wondered for a long time how it was possible to say 召し上がる instead of 召し上がります.

I had to read a lot of examples before I realized when it was proper to use polite+formal, plain+formal, polite+non-formal, plain+non-formal.