Refusing a request without causing offence
Thank you for thinking of us, but unfortunately the budget for this year has already been allocated.
We would be glad to look at this again once the new financial year begins.Every line below refuses something in a work email. English softens a refusal with fixed phrases, not with polite words scattered anywhere, so exactly one word completes each phrase: write it in the gap. A bare negative is grammatically perfect and still reads as rude, which is why these formulas are worth learning whole rather than assembling from meaning.
1. Would it be at all ___ to look at the first week of March instead?
2. Unfortunately we're not in a ___ to take this on before the new quarter.
3. I would love to help, but my hands are ___ until the new budget is approved.
4. We very much ___ that we are unable to help you on this occasion.
5. You asked whether we could squeeze you in this week - I'm ___ not.Show the answers
1. possible
2. position
3. tied
4. regret
5. afraidItem 1 keeps the door open by turning the refusal into a question about what could be arranged instead; the two little words in front of the gap form a fixed pair that widens the question, and a near synonym after them makes it sound as though effort, rather than availability, is the obstacle. Item 2 blames circumstances rather than unwillingness, which makes it the safest formula for a first reply to someone you do not know well. Item 3 is an image: you are not refusing, something outside you is preventing you, and the noun and the participle are locked together. Item 4 is by some distance the most formal of the five and belongs in a letter or in a decision that cannot be reversed - used in ordinary email it sounds cold and final. Item 5 answers a request the writer has just restated, and the missing word is the one softener here that can stand alone in front of a bare negative.