Re: German 'duzen' and 'siezen' - etymology ?

Hi!

Lars Finsen writes:
> Den 20. okt. 2006 kl. 11.41 skrev Henrik Theiling:
> >
> > But I really get annoyed by Ikea having started to address their
> > customers as 'Du' on all the signs.  Probably that's considered much
> > more cool(tm) and dynamic(tm).  It feels like an insult to me -- I
> > don't know them anonymous advertising and managing people and my only
> > potential interest is of purely commercial nature, so 'Du' is totally
> > out of place.
>
> Is this specific for Ikea or do you see it in other advertising as
> well? Maybe it's something the Ikea people are taking with them from
> Sweden. ...
Hmm, I thought about that, too, but it would surprise me if it was a
simple translation problem.  E.g. I sincerely doubt that Ikea France
would try to do this, so the idea behind this seemed a little more
elaborate, i.e., I thing there is an idea behind this -- Ikea is
likely not to have done this in all countries in parallel to Swedish.
Plus, they *changed* it in Germany -- they used to use 'Sie'.  They
did not start business in Germany just now.

My guess is more that *German* advertising people at Ikea thought
using 'Du' would be cool when they learned that the Swedish are so
much more 'relaxed'.  Something like that.

**Henrik

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