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

Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...>:

>
> When reading Henrik's statement that
>
> | 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.
>
> it occurred to me that in contemporary Swedish the
> equivalent is to over-use a persons first name when
> addressing them, as when telemarketers put "Benct" into
> every sentence, implying an intimacy which doesn't exist.
> Consequently using a person's first name when addressing
> them is an important way of signalling intimacy in Swedish,
> at least for this speaker, and indeed I find myself using my
> family's first names a lot. A kind of equivalent of the
> English use of first vs. last names, although here it is
> use vs. non-use of first names.
>
> Do you (Andreas) have the same perception, and does it apply
> to Norwegian too, Lars and Taliesin?
As I think I've mentioned earlier in this thread, I do not like it when total
strangers address me as just "Andreas" right off the bat. If someone where to
use "Andreas" in every sentence in lieu of _du_ (or _ni_), however, I'd be more
likely to suspect him or her of mental retardation than of an attempt to feign
intimacy.

After first addressing someone, I rarely repeat someone's name other than to
recapture their attention ("Benct, as I was saying ...."), whether I know them
well or not.

                                               Andreas

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