Talk:address with the polite V-form
Latest comment: 8 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)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
address with the informal T-form edit
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)