translation request

[electricdruid]

I have a question regarding Norwegian forms of address, and I'm having a tough time googling it.

Scenario 1: I am walking down the street and the person in front of me drops something. I pick it up, and to catch their attention, I call out "Sir!" or "Miss!" or "Ma'am" depending on what the stranger looks like.

Scenario 2: My friend is at a

Comments

[iddewes]

I was discussing this kind of thing before with my Norwegian penpal and she said they basically just don't use titles anymore, they would address the person by their first name usually. I can ask her about the Sir/Madam thing but maybe someone on here will reply quicker. ;)

[mayanas]

Same in Danish. I'm trying to think of a music concert scenario where people would use any title as a form of address and I can only think of... Very very formal settings. Opera perhaps. You don't ever hear "Hr." or "Fru" or "Frøken" as part of introductions anymore on TV anymore, either. It's just the full name (or first name or stage name or whatever).

[biascut]

For what it's worth, I'm british and those would all be pretty old fashioned to me. They only work in some varieties of English.

[iddewes]

True, I certainly can't imagine addressing someone from a band in that way. Maybe Placido Domingo but not a rock star.

[electricdruid]

Interesting. I see it online quite a lot. What seems wrong to you about it? The way I understand it, the "sir" is playful, and adds a touch of respect to what is otherwise casual conversation with someone you highly respect.

[iddewes]

Well I met Serj Tankian of the band System of a Down and I know I just addressed him as Serj and his other fans were doing the same. Maybe if the person were a lot older, but then I can't imagine saying "Good evening Mr Richards" to Keith Richards either. If it were Stephen Fry I would probably say Mr Fry, but that's Stephen Fry.

[whswhs]

I have no idea what one says in Norwegian, but in English, I say "Excuse me" in the former case.

[dorsetgirl]

I haven't read the other comments yet, because I wanted to give my first impressions.

the scenarios above ... are perfectly normal in English

I can't help with the Norwegian, but I also can't agree with this assertion. Both of your scenarios seem unnaturally formal to me!

For scenario 1, I would be calling out "Excuse me! Hallo? You dropped something!"

For scenario 2 (supposing I could get my words out at all through the layers of OMG-it's-really-Mike-right-here-OMG) I would be saying "Mike! I'm so thrilled to meet you, loved the show ..." etc. I would consider anyone who actually said "You, sir, are a genius" to be either taking the piss or setting themselves up as superior to the person they were praising. A more natural way of saying it imo would be "You're brilliant, an absolute genius!"

But I would emphasise that I would never call a musician a genius, because that would be to presume I am qualified to judge whether they are a genius or just very good, and I am not so qualified.

[electricdruid]

Personally, I would feel very uncomfortable shouting "Excuse me! Hallo? You dropped something!" at a stranger. That feels rather rude to me (no reflection meant on you, of course). "Excuse me, miss!" seems "perfectly normal" to me because every stranger who has ever tried to catch my attention has used this type of language.

[dorsetgirl]

Are you in the US? I have noticed that Americans use "sir/ma'am/miss" an awful lot more than we do; it sounds really strange to me! As far as I know my usage is pretty ordinary in this country; I've had very similar said to me when I've dropped something myself. (And I haven't been called "miss" since I was an eighteen-year-old shop assistant, many years ago.)

I'm intrigued now as to how you would decide whether to call out "Miss" or "Ma'am" to a woman? Doesn't it all take too long, by the time you've worked out whether you can see their ring finger, or whether they're old enough to be married, or at what age they might find it acceptable to be called "Ma'am" even if they're not? (If someone calls me "ma'am" I always want to say "For God's sake, do you really think I look like the Queen?" I loathe being addressed as ma'am or madam!)

[amenaspointyhat]

We distinguish by age, not actual marital status. An older woman would be ma'am and a younger would be miss.
I am in the US and we do say sir, ma'am, miss regularly. And on scenario two, that is a fairly common way to say that without sounding like you're taking the piss. I hesitate to say it's an idiom but it is common enough that it's intended meaning isn't missed.

[iddewes]

Ok, finally heard back from my Norwegian penpal and she said this about someone on the street losing something: 'Catching someone´s attention on the street... we´d probably say "Unnskyld..." (Excuse me?)... if you act a bit polite, but could also say "Du!' (You!)
So I guess it is like the Swedes thought.