Re: German T/V distinction (was Re: Is the list dead?)

Hi,

Matahaniya ang Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>:

> At any rate, I've noticed that people on German Usenet
> will tend to use "du" even if they've never met their
> addressee before nor been offered the "du".
Should I better call you "Herr Newton" then? :P

> business emails. (But I'd often start them with "Hallo
> Herr Müller, Sie haben ..." rather than with "Sehr
> geehrter Herr
> Müller! Sie haben ..." as in a letter.)
When writing to colleagues, yes. When I as a regular office
worker were to write an email to our employment manager or
someone else from management, I would still use "Sie" of
course, even in emails. Another interesting thing is that
while we trainees are on personal terms with each other, in
presence of superiors, we naturally switch to Sie. An
awkward thing that has happened to me once is that I felt it
would be appropriate to use the formal address with this
bank clerk in front of me -- who was obviously a trainee
like myself and also about my age, maybe even a bit younger.
But the formal environment definitely required addressing
this guy with "Sie" nevertheless.

However, having worked in a firm for almost two years now, I
got attuned to rather being called "Sie" and "Herr Becker"
by strangers, so that now it feels awkward when people older
than myself address me as "du", e.g. in shops. People
usually underestimate my age anyway though, which kind of
feels bad when you're still young...

Regards
Carsten

--
Venena, Tayamang 16, 2317 ya 14:54:42 pd
Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 05:13:11 pm