Tutoyer, or where words and culture collide

[lola]

We had a house guest recently, a 22 yo who works in the Parisian film industry. Nice kid, from a village near Lyon. He says that people he works with -- movie stars, writers, everyone --use the "tu" form, and he finds that an annoying affectation.

I have another friend, an American who's lived in Hamburg for a long time, who told me that she slipped and addressed a male acquaintance as "du", got a very chilly reply.

How hard it it to navigate those finer points when you live and work in a country where it makes a difference? A nice thing about English is how all-purpose "you" can be.

[bixaorellana]

Don't get me started! Two of the things I most love about English are a) no different formal and familiar forms of address; and b) no effing genders.

That is interesting that your young friend objected to the universal use of the familiar. You would think people in that age group would embrace it.

I'm extremely careful about it, although greatly prefer using the familiar. Saying "Your Mercy" to other people just doesn't set right with me. Also, being addressed in the formal is problematic. Are they asking me if I went on vacation, or inquiring about a third party?

[lola]

I imagine Flavian was used to using tu with his university friends, and found addressing older people and superiors at work that way uncomfortable. Like maybe switching to calling childhood friends' parents by their first names, or old teachers.

Genders. Yes. Last time I was in Paris I asked the patisserie woman about "la gateau" and then noticed her pained look. Oh, so sorry, forgive me: le gateau. It is nice that they care, of course.

[fumobici]

In Italy the almost universal use of the familiar in advertising has done much to erase the line. I mean if a billboard is entitled to address one as 'tu', what standards really still apply? The subjunctive is also losing ground, particularly in spoken Italian.

My grandmother taught me one may cheat for french genders and use a vague truncated 'n' sound for either un or une and (this is even worse) create a very short vowel sound half between 'e' and 'a' for le/la if you couldn't remember. She lived in Paris, but was obviously not a language purist!

[lola]

Well, bless your Grandmother for that! Makes me feel better.

[Deleted]

It took ages for it to really sink in, but I have to admit that I have learned to appreciate the intricacies of the familiar 'tu' and the formal 'vous' in French, particularly in office politics.

However, I fully agree that it is absolutely maddening for the first ten years or so.

[auntieannie]

One of my friends in Switzerland was interviewing a young man for a position where he works. After approximately 5 minutes, the interviewee offered "we continue with "tu"?" I don't think he got the job.

[bazfaz]

Mrs Faz joined a choir in the Herault. At the first rehearsal she was told: we tutoye here. When I went on a social outing with them I found this extended to the spouses of the choir members.

[Deleted]

That is usually the way with leisure activities where everybody has equal status; obviously the same goes for sports, although of course a coach might tutoye everybody but be vouvoyed in return.

[lagatta]

That tradition is also strong in the trade-union movement and socialist/communist parties, anarchist and other left groups, and "le mouvement associatif". But there are other subtle ways of showing that all comrades are equal, but "some more equal than others", to quote Orwell. A newcomer to a trade-union federation does not easily upstage "leading comrades".

Nous tutoyons rather more readily than is done in France, but not as much as I've experienced in Italy in recent years - that was really strange as I had learnt far more formal conventions in Italian. There is also a rather antiquated regional use of "voi" - think that might have been encouraged during the fascist era instead of "Lei", which many older Italian immigrants cling to here, as it has been reinforced by the presence of "vous" in French.

English did NOT eliminate the formal, it eliminated the familiar: thou, thee, thine etc.

[lola]

I suppose you'd be more likely to offend someone by using the familiar than the formal. People could just think you're an old fashioned poop.

English: I like thee. I mean "thee."

[fumobici]

Voi as a formal singular is essentially dead in Italy, gone with the ess* pronouns. Voi is now both formal and informal 2nd person plural.

If any doubt whatever exists use the formal, it could avoid an awkward situation

[Deleted]

In France, some schoolteachers make a point of vouvoying even young children in their classes, and it makes a big impression on them. They feel so grown up when somebody does it.

[bixaorellana]

Mexican Spanish did away with the plural familiar of tú (vosotros) and exclusively uses the formal ustedes instead. Is this the case in all of Latin America?

[lagatta]

I believe so, (I am NOT an expert on the many national and regional Castillian/Spanish forms throughout Hispanic Latin America) but then there is the Voseo phenomenon: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo However that is singular, not plural.

[bjd]

I have been to 3 Latin American countries and have never heard "vosotros" there -- hence I have never bothered learning how to conjugate it. In Argentina and Uruguay the vos replaces tu.

My Italian has pretty well gone out the window but this past week I heard Lei quite often and was addressed that way too.

Sweden has become such an egalitarian country that the only person still addressed formally (3rd person singular) is the king.

[lagatta]

Tu becoming more common than before does not mean strangers will be addressed that way, especially if they are past their early twenties. But it is becoming more common in social interaction - for example the male acquaintance in Hamburg would probably have switched to "tu" if he had been Italian and not German, and certainly wouldn't have been offended.

I got a bit of that iciness when I slipped and called a professor in Italy "signora" rather than "dottoressa" or "professoressa", but I immediately recognised my error and explained that Monsieur or Madame le professeur (in Québec the latter would have been feminised to Madame la professeure) was polite address and that it was a language slip-up.

[Deleted]

Italian sounds trickier than French. I know one thing that is more common in France now is to call a doctor or a lawyer 'monsieur' or 'madame' rather than 'docteur' or 'maître' -- unless you are their client -- just to show them that they are no better than you.

[lola]

I am annoyed in US by physicians and dentists who expect me to address them as "Doctor" while they call me by my first name. All the non-physician women who work in the offices, of course, have only first names. Move this one to the pet peeve column. "Docteur" and "Madame" would suit me fine.

[bjd]

Lola, next time you go to the doctor and he asks you how you are, just say "Well, Bob/Bill or whatever, I'm here for ....".

I too think the first-name thing in N America has gone too far -- I see no reason for a doctor to call his patients by their first name, nor do I need to know the first name of the shuttle bus driver, or the waiter for that matter. "Hi, I'm Shawn and I'll be your waiter tonight".

[bazfaz]

I read that when Sarkozy first met Merkel he tried to go straight to tu. He got a frosty rebuff.

[hwinpp]

I think it's just the absence of the two forms in English that make you think English is more informal. In reality it is quite easy to use language that makes your opposite know you're not ready to get more informal.

In German we have Du/Sie. I follow the rules regarding their usage even here. Sometimes it makes things easier.

Then of course you've also got the 'Sie' in combinatio with first names. My mother used to do that with my friends (after reaching the late teens or their twenties). I think that's done in French as well?

[patricklondon]

The kind of classic German literature I had to study tended to show how the Du form was often used and meant de haut en bas.

I don't know if that's true in French to quite the same extent, but there was a whole scene in a recent episode of the crime series Engrenages where a (female) lawyer was really going off on one because her gangster client (who'd already made a pass at her) was using "tu". The English subtitles could only say something like "I'm your lawyer. You should treat me with more respect". The only English equivalent I could think of would be if the gangster had called her "darlin" or something similar.

[lagatta]

She didn't want to be on a first-name basis with him, that's about the closest English equivalent. But here there was also a sexual innuendo, so darlin, sweetie etc could have been an option.

Du, tu etc as used to servants and such strikes me as very old-fashioned. I remember TV series in English where the maid or housekeeper (a middle-aged person, and sometimes a person of colour, Black or "Oriental") was called by her or his first name and always called the employer family by their last name, Mr and Mrs so-and-so.

[bjd]

This business with servants being called by only one name seems even worse when they were called by their surname. I am reading a detective novel set in the 1920s and the maid is called Evans or something.

I have lived in France for a long time but still have a hard time knowing when to go from tu to vous with young people. We have a neighbour who is about 21 and I call him tu (he says vous to me). I have been calling him like that for a few years and find it would be strange if I suddenly changed. And I call all my kids' friends tu, since I have known most of them for years. Even if many of them are in their late 20s.

[lola]

American blacks, especially women middle age or older, understandably appreciate being addressed by title as Mr./Mrs/whatever. A few hundred years of de haut en bas would do that, I think.

They seem to appreciate ma'am and sir more than others, too, and use it themselves while it's dying out otherwise.

[Deleted]

We have a new highly qualified employee who just took a senior sales position. Since my finance position is the liaison of our two worlds, she and I will be working together a lot. Although she is friendly and excessively familiar, as per my own rule book (probably due to her having worked for an American company for a long time), she addresses me as "vous" while I use "tu" with her. She may just be sucking up to me, since I have been with the company forever and she is still in her trial period, but in any case it is one of those awkward hierarchical situations where she needs me to say "please say 'tu' to me" but I prefer to let her stew for the moment. After all, that is part of what trial periods are all about.

[bjd]

My husband has quite a few students doing internships with him. He used to say" tu" to them, expecting them to respond in kind. But after lots of students sticking with "vous", he has decided just to say "vous" to them too.

[patricklondon]

Actually, there are parts of England that use a form of thou/thee in the local dialect, Yorkshire being one. There's a tale of some brash youngster in the local cricket team getting too familiar with one of the seniors, and being very firmly told "Tha tha's them as tha's thee - and not afore!"

[lola]

That's great, Patrick.