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

Andreas Johansson skrev:
 > Quoting Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>:
 >
 > [snip]
 >> At school in the 60s it was customary to address a female
 >> teacher as "frøken" - literally "miss" - whether married
 >> or not. Male teachers were just called "lærer" -
 >> "teacher". Later we got the habit of using their last
 >> names - first the men, then the women, too.

Modern Swedish kindergarten kids even address their *male*
teachers as _fröken_, and use the word as a noun meaning
'teacher', happily unaware of its history.

 > When I was in elementary school in the nineties,

You are a mere sapling!

 > we still addressed teachers as _fröken_ (fem.) or
 > _magistern_ (masc.) until about seventh grade.

They still do, I can report.

 > Later we mostly used their given names, or nicknames in
 > some cases.

We (around 1980) surely had nicknames for them, but we
didn't address them with those. Or do you mean hypocoristics
like Kalle < Karl? That ain't nicknames! (Although I must
hasten to add that many Swedish _kortformer_ like Kalle <
[CK]arl Bosse < Bo and Bengan < Ben[cgk]t are actually
longer than their 'long' form!)

 > At uni, we mostly used the equivalent of "hey, you!". :)

Which goes to show that Sweden has perhaps gone too far out
on the informality extreme.

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