ma'am, do you think?

[emei]

Question for you English-speaking folks! In things I've been reading or watching lately, I keep realising that these fictional people don't use names the way I do.
I've been pondering titles and honorifics especially. Do you have thoughts on them? Do you actually use them in everyday life, adressing of thinking of people as Mr/Mrs So-and-so? What

Comments

[sweetestel]

(I'm absolutely terrible with French politesse, let me tell you.)
What was that?! Lol! Does this mean we, the French, are considered as polite people? I thought the contrary. I want to know more about this!

I've always called teachers by their last names, the "Mr" and "Mrs" mostly being used if they were refered to during a talk with another teacher! At uni we call some of our teachers by their first names but it's more part of a private joke, because said first name is funny or because we've got troubles pronouncing the last name, things like that!

"Sir" and "Ma'am" are only used to catch a teacher's attention in a noisy place (like a classroom :p) The only other people I call that are some old neighbours.

I've never been called only by my last name (maybe because it sounds like a French common name) but I've had some classmates who were called by their last names; mostly because two persons in the class were sharing the same first name. In school and high school, teachers only call by their last names the kids they aren't fond of :p

[emei]

:D French, as a language, is full of terrifyingly polite formulas to keep track of, and all the Madame/Monsieur/Mademoiselle for people you don't know - and when to use "tu" or "vous", and I always slip and use informal verb forms to someone I really should adress formally. Terrible, I tell you. The French are polite in language if not always friendly in manners and I'm the opposite and get CONFUSED.

If you're adressing a teacher directly, what would you call them then?

I've run across thing where someone goes by their last name because they share a first name with someone else, it seems to be the most common source of nicknames. :)

[sweetestel]

Oh, right, I had forgotten about the tu/vous trouble! Well, to be on the safe side, use "vous" when you meet unknown people. They'll tell you if they think "tu" is fine and you can't offend them by using "vous" (whereas some reserved people might be offended by the "tu")
But since French isn't your mother tongue, I think you'd be easily forgiven if you make some language mistake!

If I have to address a teacher directly I use "Sir" or "Ma'am", but most of the time we address them indirectly, starting the sentence by "Excuse me" and going on with the question! Also, we use "vous" with all our teachers. I think that only the last year doctorate students may use "tu" with teachers, because they've been working together for years and that most of these students are teachers-to-be.

[emei]

Mm, yeah. I know the rules for tu/vous intelletually, it's not that complicated - but it just won't stick. Using vous never comes naturally for me. (I tend to hope being foreign and smiling friendly keeps me on the safe side. ;)

[srin]

Aww, Latvian does the same thing with the singular/familiar and plural/formal pronouns. I remember a lot of kids getting yelled at for using the familiar one with teachers in Latvian school because they were used to the English system where everyone's just "you". :D

[emei]

Hee! I feel their pain. Unlike English, Swedish does have different words for singular and plural "you" - but doesn't use the plural for formal adress, so whenever I do that in French I feel like I'm making one person out to be several people.

(Random tidbit of the day: some think that plural used to be the formal pronoun in Swedish too and shop assitants and such sometimes use it to be polite to older people. My grandma will lecture anyone who does that at length; in her word using plural "you" implies that you don't consider the person you're talking to your equal, and can't be bothered to learn their proper name/title either.)

[srin]

Aww! That is interesting. Hmm, now I wonder about that plural=formal thing... Many Indo-European languages do seem to do it, but I wonder if it's a very old thing that Swedish lost, or a slightly more recent development that Swedish never acquired... I know a Dane and a Norwegian, I may need to question them and see how it works in those languages. Hooray linguistic geekery! :D

[emei]

Linguistic geekery ftw! :D As far as I know, the properly polite/formal adress in Swedish used to be all titles and no pronouns - not "Would you like some tea, mother?" but "Would mother like some tea?" or like "what does the Doctor think?". I'm glad it disappeared, because it'd be ridiculously complicated talking to people you don't know! Maybe the plural=formal is a very old thing that developed differently? Since Swedish did once have plural referring to just one person, even though it was more about keeping distance and less about politeness. Comparing with Danish and Norwegian sounds interesting - I suspect it'll be similar but I don't actually know. :D