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

Quoting Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>:

> 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. Swedes are a little more formal than Norwegians, but not
> much. In Norway the duzen-siezen divide has all but disappeared. You
> hardly even use the 'polite' pronoun to the king.
Hehe. In Sweden, you're not supposed to use a pronoun at all when addressing the
king, but to say _kungen_ "the king" all the time.

> There is some
> tendency for reviving it, but very weak. The feeling I get if someone
> tries to say 'De' to me is one of unfriendliness.
Similarly here. I do tend to switch to _ni_ when addressing adult strangers, but
some find even that disagreeable. Of course, as I imagine BP will jump in to
point out, the use of the sg _ni_ has a somewhat convoluted history in Swedish,
since there was a period when it was the formal way of addressing people not
important enough to have a title.


                                                  Andreas

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