Talk:address with the polite V-form
Add topicLatest comment: 9 years ago by -sche in topic RFM discussion: May 2013–November 2015
RFD
[edit]See Talk:address with the informal T-form. - -sche (discuss) 19:13, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
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Does English really not have a better term for this? I imagine that even if English doesn't have this phenomenon itself, it would still have a word to describe it in other languages. Also, what is its antonym? —CodeCat 13:21, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
- The antonym is thou, though it may be obsolete. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 17:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
- I think English really doesn't have a word for this, even when talking about other languages. When I want to talk about it, I use the verb found in whatever language I'm discussing, so if I'm talking about French, I'll say vouvoyer and if I'm talking about German I'll say siezen. As in "When I was in Paris, I vouvoyered my host parents until they asked me to tutoyer them, but when I was in Vienna, I duzened my host parents right away." (Actually, this brings up an interesting phenomenon I've noticed among English-speaking expats living in Germany: when we adopt German verbs when speaking English, some of us leave the infinitive -en on and say "I siezened him, I duzened her", while others of us drop the -en and say "I siezed /ziːtst/ him, I duzed /duːtst/ her".) —Angr 18:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
- Yep, the non-Romance words don't even start with V, which I find problematic. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
- The formal pronoun is called V-form and the informal T-form regardless of language. Thus, this could be moved to address with the V-form (and address with the informal T-form to address with the T-form). — Ungoliant (Falai) 21:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
- Yep, the non-Romance words don't even start with V, which I find problematic. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
- I think English really doesn't have a word for this, even when talking about other languages. When I want to talk about it, I use the verb found in whatever language I'm discussing, so if I'm talking about French, I'll say vouvoyer and if I'm talking about German I'll say siezen. As in "When I was in Paris, I vouvoyered my host parents until they asked me to tutoyer them, but when I was in Vienna, I duzened my host parents right away." (Actually, this brings up an interesting phenomenon I've noticed among English-speaking expats living in Germany: when we adopt German verbs when speaking English, some of us leave the infinitive -en on and say "I siezened him, I duzened her", while others of us drop the -en and say "I siezed /ziːtst/ him, I duzed /duːtst/ her".) —Angr 18:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not suggesting that this entry should (or shouldn't) be moved there, but you#Verb is the English term for this (although it's obsolete). The counterpart, as Takasugi Shinji noted, is thou#Verb. - -sche (discuss) 06:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
- Move address with the polite V-form to you#verb and address with the informal T-form to thou#Verb. Or at least drop "polite" and "informal", per Ungoliant. - -sche (discuss) 04:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)