371–380 of 441 posts
Slovene has three levels of politeness: * ti (second person singular) * vi (second person plural) * oni (third person plural) -- archaic
* tu (second person singular, informal)
* dumneata (second person singular, semi-formal)
* dumneavoastră (second person plural, formal)
"dumne" comes "domn" aka "sir".
I thought "you" was the formal version and "thou" was informal. Didn't read the article though. No time right now but I'll do so later. I'm happy more languages drop this formal stuff though. In Dutch it's also pretty uncommon now to say "U". And I like it. In fact it used to be much worse, when I was young every agenda came with a whole page of formal verbiage for people of different roles (like ministers, judges an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is very ignorant towards many cultures and such behavior would be actively harming your career in most places I've got to know. You're lucky to be in a place where your lack of empathy towards local etiquette does not result in more peer pressure, for better or for worse. We are not equal.
No one is equal to no one. I do not see how this can be taken badly at all : absence of equality does not equate to lack of intrinsic merit.
As to the main topic : I think some degree of deference to some people, represented by some specific words, is a good thing, as long as it does not fall into some Byzantine rules that make communication less efficient.
But like everything, it has some drawbacks : the constant need to level everything and to some kind of hypocrisy.
I have nothing to back my intuition on, just some Sapir-Whorfish reasoning...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
To "the" or not to "the" before a name or noun.
Thee and Thou are still used in Northern England (Yorkshire and Lancashire). Although probably only by older people and often spoken as Thi and Tha.
I feel like this must be fading because I lived in North Yorkshire for almost 5 years and never heard a thee/thou used. On the other hand, English dialects are hyper localized so there might be villages where it is normal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it is reserved for the closest of relationships such as family, lovers etc. You use du for your friends, your classmates, people your own age up through about college, and anyone you think you are or should be on informal terms with. Such as shop workers (sometimes), bartenders (usually), waiters (depending on location), random people in the street (in places like Berlin, if they're not senior citizens), and anyone…
First, note my correction to the mistake in the above 'Afterthought'. Brain wasn't in gear. _ Thanks for the info. My German is far from perfect so I don't claim any authority on the matter. Most of my time in a German-speaking environment was in Austria (Wien) and that was now some years ago. Back when I was learning the language it was always stressed to me not to use du even with friends as it would be deemed as u…
You may or may not consider these better than "youse", though I will say "yous" before "y'all" (quaint American import) regardless of context to the day I die.
Afterthought: the post below illustrates the paucity of modern English in that nowadays in modern English no distinction is made between the second and third person 'you' whereas in other languages such as German it still is. __ I've mentioned on HN previously when discussing languages that when my father was learning German his old textbook had the English thee, thou, and thine/thy as the second person for the Germa…
I remember when I was learning German seriously I switched over software and websites to German... and felt very uncomfortable that facebook would always use 'du' with me. I'm guessing it's some marketing "oh we're so informal and cool" marketing wank talk, but it grossed me out. Not sure if any native German speakers that had that reaction.
It is weird getting a balance update with "Hi" as the leader and emoticons throughout. We're not chums, just give me the news in the most emotionless manner possible.
And don't get me started on the direction Microsoft went with Windows 10/11. "We're just getting things ready!" "Working on it..." "Something went wrong :(".... Eugh!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you take a complicated social issue and reduce it until it becomes a one-dimensional question, of course it sounds stupid. 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, tran…
It's besides the point, but a slight correction: you wouldn't assume someone's preferred pronouns from details about their genitals (it'd be offensive to ask or try to check!), but from how they present them self - through gendered appearance or perhaps by just stating it.
In my native Texan English, "y'all" can certainly act as a singular polite "you" (EDIT: though it is not terribly common). I often use "Howdy, how y'all doin?" as a polite greeting to people I don't know regardless of the number of people I am addressing, though switch to just "you" after making acquaintance. Funny enough, "howdy" is a contraction of the older "how do ye" and some people still consider it both a gree…
Y’all is a perfectly cromulent gender neutral way to address a group of people in a professional setting.