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Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

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Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#351

Post by grishka »

blowski wrote: post #162
FromTheSteppe wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does the “flirting by speaking formally” work? “I say, does Madam visit this establishment frequently”.

In Russian you can sometimes jokingly call someone like a friend or a partner "вы" + their first and middle (father's) name. It makes you sound kinda important.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#352

Post by toolslive »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #296
snidane wrote: post #109

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…

In Flanders, Belgium there is a slow adoption of T. But what is weird is that the V is used in BOTH contexts. The T is used in the Netherlands but slowly more and more people in Flanders are adopting the T version in written language. And it irks me. Companies sending you a letter addressing you with the T version, like we're friends. I don't want to be addressed by V for reasons of respect. I don't want to be addres…

Education has been trying to kill the "ge/gij" form for decades by ignoring its existence. In Flanders, they are not really succeeding. Everybody still uses it in spoken form. However, the number of people knowing how to conjugate it properly in written form is decreasing. "Gij hadt" fe, is correct but rarely encountered .

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#353

Post by globular-toast »

blowski wrote: post #162
FromTheSteppe wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does the “flirting by speaking formally” work? “I say, does Madam visit this establishment frequently”.

Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ?

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#354

Post by vidarh »

jmac01 wrote: post #223
snidane wrote: post #109

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.

I remember the first time I was referred to as "sir" after moving to the UK from Norway.

In Norway it's now rare to come across the equivalent "Herr" other than as an insult (implying you're stuck up), outside of very limited cases, such as instead of "Mr", but that use too is in steep decline.

English is full of ways to express implied hierarchy through different wording / tone without the T-V distinction.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#355

Post by moffkalast »

echaozh wrote: post #326
snidane wrote: post #109

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…

If tenses are cases are what keeps languages from being global, you should all speak Chinese now, whose words don't change forms at all.

Yeah but doesn't the way you intone a word change the meaning entirely? With how heavy accents are the norm for English second speakers I would think this makes Chinese practically impossible to learn to pronounce. Also 90% of the world can read the latin alphabet already which is a good start when learning a new language. Years ago I made a small attempt to learn some Russian and Cyrillic was like smashing against a brick wall, I imagine it's 200x worse for Chinese since you have to learn 5000 new characters.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#356

Post by moffkalast »

jack2312 wrote: post #288
snidane wrote: post #109

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…

Huh, having learned Spanish as a non-native speaker, I was taught that the two forms had more to do with the closeness of the relationship than they did with some sort of social rank or superiority. For example, a family member who you would address as "sir" (at least in the Southern U.S.), maybe a parent or grandparent, might be taken aback if you addressed them with the formal "usted" in Spanish, because it didn't…

Not sure about Spanish, but in Slavic/Germanic languages it's as OP says, the plural form tends to show more respect for e.g. talking to a stranger, especially an older one. Students typically address teachers this way and teachers don't do it in return, until university where students are considered old enough and it's typically done mutually. People of the same age that know each other almost always just use singular form.

There are actually three forms if we're completely exact: singular 2nd person, plural 2nd person, and plural 3rd person. German uses the first and last, Slavic languages have all three but the third is very dated and practically unused by now.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#357

Post by moffkalast »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #222
mytailorisrich wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English became the dominant business language for reasons unrelated to the English language itself but because of the relative power of the people who spoke the language.

The english people became powerful because english is such a good language.

I would imagine it was more because of the island/shipbuilding supremacy thing.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#358

Post by tim333 »

abtinf wrote: post #272
emodendroket wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This felt to me like one of the reasons why English became the dominant language for business over time. I don't think that has much to do with it. I think it has more to do with the dominant political and economic position of the United States. French served a similar role in the past despite having all the features you describe.

America was an economic backwater until the 1900s. France was, and to a greatly diminished extent still is, a global power. French has T-V distinction. French has arbitrary noun gendering. The noun gendering alone makes it significantly easier to embarrass yourself speaking French than English.

Prior to the 1900s there was the British empire which spread English around a fair bit.

>At its height in the 19th and early 20th century, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. (wikipedia)

It was said the sun never set on the British empire as it had bits in most time zones which led to a joke from the Indians that it was because God didn't trust the British in the dark.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#359

Post by adhesive_wombat »

andruby wrote: post #343
oldgradstudent wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The noun gendering alone makes it significantly easier to embarrass yourself speaking French than English. English has more than enough of ways to easily embarrass yourself without the need for arbitrary noun gendering.

Such as? I’m genuinely asking for examples. I’ve embarrassed myself quite often in French, yet haven’t much in English. * neither are my mother tongue

The adjective order one is really interesting to explain: the adjectives in "good small old red wooden English book" have to come in that order or it sounds very peculiar.

Other European languages may have this to, but explaining it to people who speak unrelated languages usual results in a wail of "but why?!"

Many English speakers don't themselves realise it - in the UK, at least, we are not carefully taught English piece by piece after a very young age. Most grammatical understanding comes when (if!) you study a foreign language and then you find out that "find out" is a thing called a "phrasal verb".

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