the questions of our times: formality and vampires

[rm]

This, thanks to a discussion started by weirdquark. Please do visit the comments where you will learn many things including the many ways formality is structured in different languages (something my questions did not fully take into account, and I apologize for that), werewolf pack dynamics considerations, and whether there are vampires in France.

[Poll #1601631]

Comments

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

French and Spanish both have verbs to mean "use the informal with someone." (In Spanish, the verb is tutear: to address someone as "tu" instead of "usted". In French, the verb is tutoyer.) When you're speaking to an old-fashioned person, use the formal until such time as they invite you otherwise.

People you're of an age with, use "tu" immediately, and these days, I find that in the Latino neighborhoods I live in, everyone uses "tu" with everyone else. But then, we're neighbors!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I didn't know those verbs. I find I'm more informal in Spanish than in French, but then I learned my French starting in 1977 with a teacher from Paris at Miss Hewitt's. My Spanish, originally, was Castilian, but I've tried hard to excise a lot of those ticks and formalities from my speech because it's not appreciated in New York, AT ALL.

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

Me too! I learned very formal Spanish at school, but I've lived in NYC most of my life, so I've learned to speak what I call "subway Spanish". Local Latino idiom. :)

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Hm, I don't remember those verbs either! But I also haven't spoken Spanish habitually or regularly since I lived at home, and it was kind of a bastardized Mexican/Castilian dialect anyway due to how I grew up. Most of my Spanish is used either with family, as informal, or as a representative of a business.

I don't remember there being a set phrase or combination of phrases commonly used in France to request switching formalities either, but again, most of my experience was with other school-kids, so among equals, or with teachers. Is it your experience that these verbs are commonly used?

*is a bit of a dork*

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

German has duzen and siezen for the informal and formal, respectively. I'm pretty sure there's some sort of etiquette for who offers the 'du', but I don't know it. (Well, it's almost certainly never me who gets to decide to use the informal, which makes things easy.)

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

This. In French, you "tutoyer" your peer group off the bat and children, but non-peers (older than you or alternate life forms) would give you permission to do so before you stop using the formal "vous".

So, for instance, I used "vous" with my Parisian host mom (who was in her late 40s) when I first met her; she insisted that we use "tu" right away since I'd be living with her. My Aix-en-Provence host mom, however, was my grandmother's age, and we used "vous" the entire time despite my living in her house.

I didn't meet any vampires in France, sadly.