Re: THEORY: The fourth person

While reading the mails that I wanted to read but couldn't manage to
read up to now ...

From: "Henrik Theiling" <theiling@ABSINT.COM <mailto:theiling@...>>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: THEORY: The fourth person

[snip]

 > Dutch 'men' is also replaced by 'jou'/'je' in most circumstances (like
 > English) and German 'man' is only a bit behind im time: I'm probably
 > part of the last generation to use 'man' -- modern usage is 'Du' as
 > well.  I hate it, but I probably can't stop 'Du' from being misused in
 > such a way.
 >
 > **Henrik

Well, everyone around me also uses "man", and I'm about 15 years younger
than you (I guess). I could almost hate people for saying "du" instead
of "man". It hurts my grammatical sense and my ears as well. I also find
this use of "du" kind of unfriendly towards adults you're not familar
with or people you've respect of (like teachers e.g.), who should be
definitely referred to as "Sie".

As for French "on", I think its use is interesting. I was explained by a
Frenchman, that they'd rather like to use "on" than a passive
construction. So they say "One has cut my hair." instead of "I had my
hair cut."

--Carsten

... it's still 261 mails to read (plus the ones of today)!

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