Re: First report on Coní

Quoting Tristan <kesuari@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>   > The Tairezans place the personal name before the family name. With
> friends and
> > family you use only the first name, in formal situation the full name.
> You don't
> > typicall adress someone with only a family name - it's either only
> personal
> > (informal situation) or both names (formal ones). If you speak/write
> about
> > someone you do not personally know, you typically use both names the
> first time,
> > and then further references to the person in question uses only the
> family name.
>
> That's more-or-less the normal way of doing it in English countries,
> isn't it? (Though I know of people---myself included---who don't like
> being called by their surname, and people you normally call by their
> surname.)
I unscientific impression is that Anglophones are much more likely to address
people with their family names than are the Tairezans, and also more likely
refer to personal friends by surname. But I'm sure there's lots and lots of
variation between countries, classes, generations, what have you.

Also, the Tairezans don't have anything corresponding to English Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss.

> > Since using a full name about someone you know well when speaking to
> someone who
> > also knows the person well might be construed as unfriendlily formal,
> it's more
> > common to distinguish bearers of the same personal name by adding
> nick-names
> > than to resort to full names (ie, you speak of "Bob Brown" and "Bob
> Green" as
> > "little Bob" and "big Bob", or whatever)
>
> Well, if you were doing that in Australia, you might call 'Bob Brown'
> 'Green Bob'---the leader of the Green party is (Senator, but titles
> are
> rarely used) Bob Brown.
If you knew him personally, yes. Otherwise you might rather call him 'Green
Brown'.

                                                        Andreas

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