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

I despise cold-callers in general and over-familiar ones in general,
particularly since they always use my full name Douglas, which I
dislike. I'm known among my friends for doing horrible things to
them, like speaking only Gaelic and pretending I don't speak English
(they can tell the language is European but they have NO idea what it
is), blowing a whistle into the phone, asking them to wait just a
moment and then leaving the room with the phone off the hook till
they have to disconnect, telling them Mr. Barr recently passed away,
or using a very deep breathy voice - known to my friends as "Doug's
porn-star voice" - to ask them what they're wearing (particularly
effective on male callers *grin*).

With Gaels, first names are the rule for outsiders - with use of
polite "sibh" = "Sie" ~ "vous" - within the community pretty much
everyone has a nickname, because there are so many same names: there
aren't that many Gaelic first names, and everyone in an area may have
the same last name, so even in a small village you might have two or
three people named, e.g., Iàin Mac Leòid (John McLeod). In fact, on
the island of Barra about 90% of the people have the surname Mac
Néill, so first names are useless and even the phone book uses
nicknames.

Quick funny story about one nickname that lead to a piece of slang in
Barra Gaelic:

There was a merchant marine whose nickname was Haiti because that was
his usual destination; his wife naturally became known as Bean Haiti,
"Haiti's Wife" or "Mrs. Haiti." She was a proper Gaelic woman who
spoke little or no English, but her husband and sons had of course
picked up English - you can imagine what *kind* of English it was,
they being sailors. Anyway, I forget if she was Catholic and the
Protestant minister was visiting her in the spirit of ecumenical
friendship or whether she was Protestant, but anyway the minister
came over to suggest (if I recall correctly) a picnic or something
for all the people in the community, both religions. She, wishing to
show off her knowledge of English, such as it was, used a word she'd
heard from her husband and sons and assumed to mean "very" or
something similar, and so this very proper Gaelic lady sat up,
smiled, and said in her soft Gaelic accent, "That's a f***ing good
idea, minister." Shock ensued. :-D I have no idea what she did to her
husband and sons when they came home, but I do know that to this day
on Barra you can say, "idea Bean Haiti" - a "Mrs. Haiti idea," always
using the English word "idea," not "dealbh-inntinn" in Gaelic - to
mean a "f***ing good idea." :-D

Doug

Abair ach beagan, ach abair gu math e - Say but little, but say it
well. (Gaelic proverb)

On Oct 19, 2006, at 12:06 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> (*) Cold-calling salespeople call me "Mark" instead of "Mr. Reed", for
> instance.  With them it's as much technique as anything else, but it's
> not uncommon in general.
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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