placeo

Placeo, placere, placui, placitum is second conjugation and it governs the dative of the person pleased: mihi placet, regi placuit. Never an accusative. English flips the sentence round - "I like it" - so the habit to build is to make the thing the subject and the person the indirect object.

The impersonal placet with an infinitive is the formal language of decision: senatui placuit, "the senate resolved", and in church councils placuit synodo ut. The perfect participle placitum becomes a noun meaning a decree or a plea, which is where English "plea" and "plead" come from by way of French. Distinguish placeo from placo, placare (first conjugation), "to appease" - one is what the thing does to you, the other is what you do to an angry god.