251–260 of 441 posts
In some parts of the UK, thou is still used. Certainly I have been addressed in this way in the past.
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Quebec French seems to be in the process of dropping the formal. It’s way less common there than metro/france French.
This so untrue I had to make an account to reply to you. Quebec french is standardised by the OQLF (Office Québécois de la Langue Française) and the formal/informal distinction is as important in our french as it is in other cultures. The reason it might seem less common is because most conversations people have are informal. In formal settings, it is still expected of people to use "vous" rather than "tu". It is see…
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In Spanish asymmetric conversations have always been a thing, e.g. student-teacher, patient-doctor or younger-older conversations where the former side uses V and the latter T. The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated, though, definitely it seems faster than in French (although I don't know that much about French). I don't think my 4-year-old son will…
I always start formal (except with kids), and if the other part switches to informal, then I switch too.
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Like in Spanish, where the formal second-person pronouns are the same as the third-person pronouns.
What about ellos/ellas?
I had never until just now considered the possibility that “you” might be the thorn misprint of “thou”, just like how in “ye olde shoppe” was (according to legend) pronounced “the old shop” because Y got used in printing presses as a stand-in for the thorn “Þ” character they didn’t have, that looks kinda-sorta like a Y. Seems like the answers suggest I’m just imagining something that didn’t happen, but it was a fun t…
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How does the “flirting by speaking formally” work? “I say, does Madam visit this establishment frequently”.
Different cultures. Persian has 1100 years of literature and recent media for this. On the other hand you can't dirty talk with a straight face in Persian, since nobody has ever heard or read about it, it sounds super funny.
I recall the One-Thousand-and-One Nights being quite bawdy (talking about lusting after well-endowed servants, IIRC); maybe that's not authentic Persian literature though?
Maybe I misunderstood "nobody has ever read or heard about it"?
Can you help me better understand your comment, thanks.
As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…
Is it culturally English speaking to think this just sounds like social anxiety rather than an expected norm? If someone thought they were superior than me and expected a particular greeting or whatever, I'd tell them where to shove it lol We are all equal.
Imagine a foreigner learning English and asking "Why do I have to care if people are male or female? What a sexist language! Nobody cares about genitals in my culture!" And they start to refer to everybody as "he", regardless of, well, genitals.
They won't come across as more enlightened, transcending the shackles of sexist English grammar.
They will simply sound like a poor English speaker.
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Is speaking to someone formally considered ending up in an inferior position in all cultures? In Persian if someone expects to be spoken with formally, they have to speak formally themselves. So when you speak formally you're kinda bringing both parties up. You can even flirt by speaking formally.
In Spanish asymmetric conversations have always been a thing, e.g. student-teacher, patient-doctor or younger-older conversations where the former side uses V and the latter T. The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated, though, definitely it seems faster than in French (although I don't know that much about French). I don't think my 4-year-old son will…
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The anglos won the world wars due to the intrinsic merits of english, not only because war itself requires communication, but also because they were able to mobilize more resources, including the resources of a country full of recent immigrants, who had all already learned english.
But English was dominant because the people who were dominant in those areas spoke English. It’s because of that previous dominance that the allies (you forgot the Soviet Union, China, the Netherlands, and France among others btw) were able to build on that dominance and succeed. Their success built into the post-war growth of English and the US, as they were undamaged and recovered quickly. So I would say that Engli…
As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…
Native speakers at least are capable of picking up on all sorts of nuance in word choice and tone
Give it a couple hundred years, all the subtle or not-so-subtle nuances will standardize and settle into grammar constructs.