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

On 10/22/06, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> What is prescriptive about opposing to addressings that are the
> equivalent to 'Hi buggers, this is your bugger's must-buy new sofa'
> (or in Carsten's case: '... most beloved music')?  It is not a
> conservative criticism about what is the right grammatical form of the
> pronoun -- it is more about being pissed by being insulted.
Meh.   It's not the words, it's the intent.  I don't even object to
being called a "bugger" (or a "fucker", which is much more offensive
on this side of the Pond) in the right circumstance.  Cold-calling
salespeople bug me because they're cold-calling salespeople, not
because they are insulting me by calling me "Mark" when they don't
know me from Adam...  I'm sure that's just part of the cultural
difference, but from here it looks like much ado about a grammatical
nitpick.


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>