"Please advise" -- why is this a common turn of phrase for foreign speakers of English?

"Please advise" is quickly becoming common place in email conversations where one person asks a question and then makes it extremely clear that the other side now has responsibility for doing something next. Essentially, it means "I am now done doing things; you go do something and get back to me."

I do not know of its use outside of emails or other text-based mediums nor do I know its origin but I can emphatically confirm native speakers using it and using it frequently.

In the United States, please advise is very common in business and legal writing, both paper and electronic. I have never heard it spoken. While it is understood that the object is dropped for the sake of brevity (please advise me), advise is a transitive verb and technically must have an object. Therefore the phrase is grammatically unsound, and should be considered a bad habit. Including the object and even supplementary information provides a clearer message: Please advise me on this issue.

Advise means "offer suggestions about the best course of action to someone," in both American and British English. It can be used as a transitive and non-transitive verb.

I advised her to go home.
She advised caution.
We advise against sending cash by post.

Looking for please advise in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, I get the following result. [pp*] matches any personal pronoun.

                 spoken  fiction magazine newspaper academic
please advise        1        11        9         3        0
please advise [pp*]  1         3        0         2        0

When putting “please advise” in an email, basically you are asking how to proceed on the issue you are addressing in the email. I like the “ball is in your court” reference … it fits. I think it may come from CB radio or ham radio communications. I have heard it used on the radio asking for clarification on the subject. I have also heard “please be advised”, meaning pay attention – important information following. Slang or jargon often finds its way into spoken English.