Comment by bambax
5 days ago
> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.)
I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name.
Being "on a first name basis" still has meaning for me -- or it would, if it had for anyone else, which clearly is absolutely not the case anymore.
Interesting, as a German (which also has a similar system), I am the complete opposite, I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name. And the worst part is having to figure out how to address others, especially people you've known for a while but aren't really close to, e.g. say long-time neighbors I rarely meet.
Luckily, in the IT industry, it's common to just use first names with everybody.
Yes. I find addressing people by surname uniquely stupid. Like are you calling the person or the historical clan? It perhaps made sense for medieval lords to address their underlings as if they were interchangeable, in our modern context that has largely done away with royalty, using surnames makes no sense.
It becomes even more interesting when traditionally cultures (like mine) don't use surnames, but modern IT systems stemming from the Anglo Saxon culture force people to arbitrarily assign one of their names as a surname or IT systems generally don't work.
I have a very common first name (Dave) and a very uncommon last name (Pifke, pronounced PIF-key). The majority of my close friends call me by my last name, since there are several other Daves and Davids in our friend group.
My brother's friends do likewise, since his first name is Mike and he runs with a bunch of other Mikes and Michaels.
There's a naming collision when my brother and I hang out together, but since we live in different states, the system usually works.
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I think American high school kids often refer to and address one another by surname. It was the case when at my son's high school, as I recall at my own, and I think at my wife's. It might have been the case at my father's, and perhaps my wife's parents--I'd have to look at the yearbooks.
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The fact that different cultures evolved such systems independently proves that the general idea does make sense. Case in point: you go to an American company, the CEO says "call me simply John, feel free to chat up whenever you feel like it, we're all family here" and then you go talk to him about sex life problems of your marriage and he just stares at you awkwardly. Having explicit layers of social "closeness" makes things much easier to manage. "We address each other using last names, therefore I won't tell him about sex life of my marriage".
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>I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name.
Me too. There are still German companies where coworkers address others with Herr or Frau followed by their last name.
I find it also interesting how people that learn German understand the difference between the "you" in formal ("sie") and informal ("du") version, but often don't understand in which context du use them. In most cases you can use the informal "du" nowadays, especially when you are out with somebody for a beer.
After elementary school we had this interesting shift form addressing the other children with first name to addressing them with last name. We were circa 11 years old.
It's a generational thing. There has definitely been a change in recent years, especially the younger generation can no longer do much with the formal “Sie”, but of course they know it. I am 46 years old and have grown up with and been familiar with the “Du/Sie” dichotomy from the very beginning. It also has many advantages and offers clear relationships: There is no ambiguity as to which pronouns I use to address someone, older people and superiors always use “Sie”. With younger people/peers of the same age, you can quickly agree on a “Du”. These days, it's unclear to me who I can address as “Du”. I'm a friend of clarifying this before starting, but it's always a meta conversation, which can hinder the flow of conversation. Besides, it's a kind of badge of honor and a sign of trust when you're offered a “Du”. When I address anyone of our management team as “Du” these days, it irritates me - I'm not “best friends” with them, nor do I feel closer or more connected. For me, the distinction is/was never an expression of whether you are on an equal footing or not.
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As a born and raised English speaker and fluent Italian speaker, I still don't love the "tu / lei". It's very... binary as to what gets used. Sometimes that's easy, but the marginal cases can be difficult to figure out.
I think the tone and posture when addressing someone convey enough formality. Like if I met Barack Obama, I would be very formal and respectful in my bearing and language, but of course still use 'you'.
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From what I understand, it used to be similar here in Sweden, but that change with the du reform in the 60s and 70s, when people started saying "du" to everyone, and "ni" became purely plural (unless you're speaking to royalty).
We also pretty much always use first name, at least everywhere I've been. Would feel weird to call people by their last name.
ever have people at work addressing people by only their first name initial in email?
someone ive never met in person and uses my first name on work calls referring to me as "b" in email. its like the wears-a-bowtie-to-work guy of email.
come across a few of these people and have never noticed a tell they were that type of person outside the text of their email
It's interesting. My closest friends use my last name, while everyone else uses my first name at work. Apparently it was a hangover from the custom at old British public schools that some old Indian schools retained into the 70s/80s. I sort of like it.
Same here, but the reason is simple - there was a bunch of people with the same first name in my class (1st grade). So we all went by our last name. And, as those still are close friends of mine, after all these decades, they (and everyone else I know from that time) use my last name when addressing me. And other people sometimes pick it up and use it too..
I went to a British private school (which we also call "public schools" to annoy Americans) and it was certainly still hanging on there into the 80s.
My brother attended the same school where we briefly overlapped so I was by default "Minter" and when the distinction was needed I was "Minter Minor" and he would have been "Minter Major".
Like many things it doesn't make much sense in retrospect.
Edit: People do still often call me "Mister Minter" where I'd expect them to use my first name, but I think they just like the alliteration. It's not old schoolfriends doing it.
This is remarkable because from my outsider glimpse German culture puts an emphasis on formality and credentials. If someone has a signature like "Dr. Ing. Prof. Anselm Schultz" am sure not opening my email with "Hi Anselm".
It changed a lot in the last 25 years. But it can depend from place to place. One of my friends has a Master of Engineering and he was a bit surprised when somebody in Austria addressed him with "Oh, Herr Ingenieur!"
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Mr. Doctor Professor
I appreciate that too at my former university in Germany, it's kinda "very modern" and people always use their first names for everything, professors and students alike. But it gets complicated when emailing professors that are only losely related to the uni.
It's quite common, even the norm these days, to address people by their first names in professional settings, among colleagues.
The thing is that this is also becoming/has become the norm when you get correspondance from strangers when the standard etiquette is to use title + surname, as in all European countries, I suppose.
Now, I think when people address you by your surname only, either orally or in writing, it is irritating.
Well, I personally find title + surname the worst; it's obnoxious and elitist; my (first) name isn't "engineer". I can live with it, though. I just kinda hate people who demand it of others.
So, clearly, you can't please everybody.
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Not all European countries. We phased the title and surname addressing out during the 70s here in Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen
Personally I get annoyed only if a sales person addresses me by first name. There is no other setting where I would prefer a stranger to address me using my full name, unless we’re in some context where there are dozens or hundreds of strangers so one can not expect my name is unique.
Tangent:
My father's family is German and all of the males in the family only used their middle name for everything except legal and financial documents. For example, Carl Hans Schmidt (to pick a semi-made-up example) would introduce himself as Hans to everyone he met, and the family would refer to him as Hansi.
I always wondered if that was a German (or regional) tradition, or a fun family quirk.
(The males have all regrettably passed on but I asked my aunts once and they said they had no idea why or how that was a thing, that's just what they did.)
Spanish too. Francisco Javier -> Javi, or maybe Paco (Francisco), but Javi would be the obvious case.
Francisco -> Paco from Saint Francis holding a Pater Comunitatis title in Latin.
But, as a weirder case:
José María -> Chema
Luis María -> Luisma
Juan Manuel -> Juanma
José Manuel -> Chema/Josema
Juan Ramón -> Juanra
María José (women's name) -> Marijose
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Yeah I have had bosses refer to me by my last name and it's effin irritating. I almost always prefer relaxed, casual attitudes more than frumpy traditionalist for no good reason situations. I understand rare formal occasions but I don't want to put on some mask of formality every day. I consider everyone equal, at least as far as value as a human being. Just treat me with respect, I'm fine with you using my first name.
Last name address is when things get real. Government and divorse lawyers real. Time to sober up and answer carefully.
Not a good feeling, when people do it. The only thing worse is name + patronymic. That could never be good news.
Now that I know that every culture approaches this differently, it takes zero effort to not be annoyed when someone does something different than what I expect.
^^^ what this cunt said
found the australian
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Your comments boggles me. You understand their point and immediately misapply that understanding.
These things come and go across times and cultures. Even in the United States, which many people think of as highly informal, it was once common to refer to almost everyone outside the family formally. My grandmother talked to her next door neighbor everyday and they said "Hello, Mrs. G-" and "How are you, Mrs. S-". You also see this in 19th century American and English literature ("Mr. Darcy")
At least when I was growing up, it was still the norm in the South/Texas. My parents would have never referred to the elderly in our neighborhood by their first names.
I also great up in Texas (30yo now). I was raised to always say sir/ma'am but for most adults that I knew well, we were on a first name basis. Deacons at church were usually on a first name basis (my parents volunteered a lot so I knew them all really well) but the one noticeable exception was the pastor and anyone in a teaching role.
Teachers were always addressed by Mr/Mrs/Ms and this extended into Scouts as well. For anyone I don't know, I tend to just say "sir/ma'am" (employee at the grocery store for example) unless. If the person has a professional title that I know of, I will use the title (Dr. Martin, Professor Lake, etc).
My parents I suppose were very similar. Sir/Ma'am for most interactions, but I don't recall hearing a Mr/Mrs/Ms when they referenced other people in our lives.
Since I've moved to Europe a few years back, I'm trying to follow the local customs more, which at first glance seem very similar (Netherlands). Formal for strangers, informal for basically everyone else. I've tried using the formal with some older neighbours and they always tell me stop immediately!
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In rural Georgia my father's wife, still 15+ years my senior, would always "yessir" and "no sir" me, just as she did with everyone else (ma'am for women, of course). And this was in the past 10 years. Even my half-siblings from rural Alabama do that generally, but not nearly so strictly with family like myself. Use of last names, though, is still reserved for non-family elders.
Conversely, in coastal California that kind of speech is actively (even aggressively) discouraged, such as in public schools, higher grades, especially. It's still appreciated in more traditional communities, though, such as black or immigrant Asian communities. Code switching isn't limited to certain minority groups; even affluent coastal white folks often end of code switching.
Giving respect based on seniority is one of the major reasons why autocracies thrive unchecked in some countries as younger people are unable to hold older folks accountable.
In its extreme shapes maybe, but just paying respect to the elders for having lived much longer and seen so much more, is something that should be normal in my opinion.
It used to be a lot more reasonable back in the day.
When the world didn't change as quickly, or didn't change at all, the elders truly knew everything the young ones knew, and so much more. They had truly seen everything and had plenty of experience with the problems young people were struggling with.
This very much isn't the case any more. I'm in my twenties (technically part of gen Z), but I already feel like I don't understand the Tiktok-using, trap-loving part of my generation. The 14-18 year olds probably have very different issues now than I did at that age, and that wasn't even so long ago. People from my parents' generation are out of the loop completely, their world still revolves around linear TV, college as a path for success in life etc.
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It's a tougher sell when the younger generation gets the short end of the stick.
In a way that would be a good barometer of how that society thinks it's doing and how promising the younger generation sees its future, as prepared by their elders.
It's all the more interesting in countries where the population pyramid if fully reversed, and elders have way more power than the younger working class.
seniority as in rank, and respect for elders as in filial piety in East Asia are two very different things. Autocracy relies on execution of arbitrary power, and the latter places a limit on it. It's why after the revolution in China, Confucianism is the first thing they tried to get rid of. I stayed in Beijing during the covid lockdowns and there was one group of people that could do what they wanted "dancing grannies", old people who meet up to dance in public parks because messing with them was seen as too offensive.
Autocracy is usually driven by the opposite, unrestricted mobilization of the youth. In particular true in the West today. Bukele is not exactly a pensioner, and if the US has displayed one thing in recent times it isn't respect for the age of their leaders to put it mildly.
Yes, but traditionalist power structures are still authoritarian. Insamuch as they oppose autocracies, it is by virtue of having got there first and not yielding power to the new tyrant[0]. The problem is not the age of the ruler, or the legitimacy of the power structure, but the resulting distribution of power.
Insamuch as Confucian filial piety can be a check on upstart autocrats, that's useful, but not sufficient. There's nothing stopping the Maoist autocracy from embracing Confucius[1]; Mao just didn't want to for ideological reasons. Autocrats are ultimately building a coalition of scam victims that are all locked in the same room with one another. They don't care who's in the room as long as they won't unify against the leader.
In the US, we have Trump, the oldest US President in history, with, to put it mildly, "autocratic ambitions". His coalition includes old people, who vote early and often, and want to impose the social order of the 1950s upon the country. Almost[2] nothing about them suggests that they're going to meaningfully check Trump's power anytime soon; if anything, they're the only[3] faction of the Trump coalition that's gotten anything out of the deal.
[0] If the autocrat wins, they will eventually just become the new traditionalist power structure. Every pirate wants to become an admiral.
[1] Mussolini recognized the Vatican as a sovereign state purely to get the Pope to shut up about him.
[2] Insert clip of some old guy vandalizing a Cybertruck here.
[3] No, I don't count pardoning Ross Ulbricht. The Libertarian Party sold their soul for a donut.
Everyone in Yugoslavia was called "Drug" (pronounced droog, Friend), it'd be hard to claim it wasn't autocratic. Same with the USSR and China.
Communist Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc and China was supposed to be flat and everyone was "comrade". Did that prevent autocracy?
I never truly understood linguistic formality until I was teaching a class and one of the students addressed me as “Josh”. My full name is “Joshua” and students virtually always used to call me that, but that semester, the computer system put my name as “Josh” and it felt weirdly disrespectful when a student called me that even though I know none was intended.
It's interesting for me as I'm Serbian but grew up in Indonesia. In Serbian we very much have honorifics (I think honorifics is the wrong word, not sure what the correct one is) and rules like "Younger always addresses the older with vi instead of ti, and vama instead of tebi etc. unless you're relatives or are close", but it also applies generally for strangers, so even if you're the same age or even if you're older, it's more polite to use the formal forms.
In Indonesia nobody really cares too much, and I called my teachers everything from "Ibu X" (Ibu meaning ma'am/miss, but also mother) to their first names or a mixture like "Ibu FirstOrLastName". At best you'll get a "bapak/ibu" which is basically just sir/ma'am, but I've been called "kak" (lit. translated it's something like "little sister/brother", it's a very asian concept and a lot of cultures have the same, like oniichan).
I always struggle when I go back to Serbia, 'cause I wasn't really brought up with the importance of honorifics. It feels weird when I get a kid using honorifics with me, feels like I'm 60 (I'm in my 20s), and likewise people look at me like I just spat in their face if I don't use the honorifics sometimes.
Language is truly fascinating!
I live in Montevideo, here people use "usted" (the formal "you" in Spanish) to show respect to older people. But there's no strict rule about when to switch from "tu" (informal you) to "usted". So you kind of guess based on how old someone looks.
The problem is, if you say "usted" to someone who doesn't see themselves as old, they might take offence. So, trying to be polite in Uruguay can backfire if your mental age calculation is off!
I spent almost 10 years trying to avoid calling my mother and father in law by their first names. In my home country's language there are words for "mother in law" and "father in law" you can use in a second person context, but English doesn't have any. My wife has the opposite problem. She's gotten stuck calling my parents "Mr. XYZ" and "Mrs. XYZ."
My inlaws are addressed "mom" and "dad" - is that weird?
I've decided that in English, every way to address your inlaws is weird until you settle on something specifically with them. "Mom" and "Dad" or "John" and "Jane", both will be weird until you've used them for a while.
And if they don't like what you picked, you'll know pretty quick.
It’s somehow both too familiar and overly deferential. Vis-a-vis my wife’s parents, I’m not a child, but an adult, though of less seniority.
Mumble years ago I started using "Mom" and "Dad" as soon as we got married; my wife did the same with my folks — and my folks did the same with my grandparents.
I feel like tu vs vous is extra annoying in French when you're speaking to someone who's not a stranger. I have no desire to judge if you think you're too famous of eg a professor for me to say tu, your success doesn't create a hierarchy between us, and it's annoying if you think so. I much prefer English for that.
It's not really a question of fame but more of respect, we are not relatives, so you do not use tu.
agree to disagree
I try to get people to avoid my first name, mostly because they can't pronounce it. The only time I had a stranger pronounce it right was when we were meeting w/ the Republic of Ireland tech transfer office.
O, Mev!
Would addressing you by your mail address work ?
Handling people's name is I think the bane of our field, and leads to many of the awful choices like forcing fields with a first and last name for instance, or requesting people's gender to properly set the Mr and Mrs. As a dev I'm not happy about it, as a user I hate it, I'm not sure the majority of people are happy either with the current state of things.
Accepting that it's a machine sending the mail could simplify all of this quite a bit, provided people are fine by being addressed in an impersonal and inorganic way.
If you mean snail mail address, no it wouldn't. It's common to share these between people who have the same last (or sometimes first) names. Things get really fun when it's. both, e.g. a man marrying somebody who has the same first name as their sister. This actually happened in my (distant) family.
If you mean an email (or the part before the @), also no. People sometimes sign up from addresses like contact@example.com, and "dear contact" would be super confusing.
The "right thing to do" is to have a "what should we call you" field, which should be completely separate from any names collected for legal purposes, if any.
> If you mean an email (or the part before the @), also no. People sometimes sign up from addresses like contact@example.com, and "dear contact" would be super confusing.
I was going for the principle that we're not trying to mimic human emotions when it's a mail to remind you to accept the latest TOS.
So, no "Dear", no trying to come up with something socially acceptable, just plain "miki123211@hn.xx, please review our newest Terms and Services at https://....../...."
The "what should we call you" field sounds attractive, but would be ripe for abuse IMHO. Not on technical terms, but users would definitely play with it to have you send "Mrs DeepshitFuckHorse please confirm your email at...." to random addresses for instance, or any other vector that we're not thinking about right now.
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When I was in university, a friend of mine used to address me by my unix username.
Only one?
You got off light. I had a good number of people call me by my username at my undergrad.
When I went to grad school, they let us select user ids. My user name matched my first name, most elegant solution to that problem yet ;)
This rules and your friend is awesome
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Very interesting! I work for (probably) the most well known German company. Here, it's always advised to use the first name & the 2nd person singular pronoun ("du"; you) instead of the more formal third person plural pronoun ("Sie"; you)
Company standards differ and every time you meet someone new, say in a Teams-Meeting, the older person generally offers you to use "Du". You may or may not accept it
It's basically "respecting your elders"
While I (21 years of age) talk with my boss on this personal level, I can't get myself to address other older (higher ranked) employees by their first name. Saying Mr. or Mrs. is kinda required for me as the person I am, because I always try to respect them. (This doesn't apply to some other older (higher ranked) employees, those with which I don't have much to work with. While I do respect them, it's not the same type of respect I have for them)
This may sound very confusing and it even is for me, as I am not German and merely adapt to what is the cultural standard here.
My culture we address everyone by their first name. The only thing we must absolutely add are the social prefixes for older folks (typically above a 5 year range? depends on some factors.) I could never address, mention or talk about uncle / aunt XYZ as just XYZ. It's very crucial to always add that, especially for people you know. If you don't know them, just say the preferred prefix as well, it shows a basic level of respect We don't really use our surnames - it's more to identify, who exactly we are talking about. For example, when talking about "Michael", but the involved in the conversation don't know who we're talking about we usually just say "from the house of surname" (house of is the literal translation)
Spaniard here; addressing someone by the last name looks really outdated.
As a tourist, it's a cheat code to be hyper formal. Gets you instant goodwill.
Spanish has actually three levels of formality when addressing someone by name:
<First name>: Informal, casual conversation.
Don <First name>: More formal, conveys respect while still indicating some closeness.
Señor <Last name>: Most formal, normally used in writing.
Using only someone's last name is just plain weird. If you want to speak formally to someone just address them as "usted", it will get you the same goodwill without sounding off.
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Same.
The only situation where I call people by their last name in my language is when it's their nickname. Like there were two "Johns" so we call the second one "Smith".
In Portugal it's very associated with military service. I don't think I've ever been addressed by my last name here.
In Spain maybe if you are something really important or being addressed on very formal environments. Maybe a boss/manager from a corporation addressing clients...
Has tutoiement changed too? How does that work with machines, do they always use vous form?
Typically machines/websites should use "vous", but it is more and more common to read "tu", depending on the target audience and the company marketing.
I'm Lithuanian but lived over 15 years (near half my lifetime) in UK and NZ.
I love the informality and my brain struggles a bit when I speak Lithuanian, esp when I know I should be using formal addressing, but I'm not sure I want to.
In Korean, you can never address someone older by their first name. Yes not even your blood brother or sister.
When I moved to the US it was a cultural shock to have people call me by my first name. But I got used to it quickly and now everything else seems awkward, especially since my last name is hard to pronounce.
And with french you also have Tu vs Vous.
I am almost at the halfway point of my life expectancy, and I do actually prefer people using my first name over my last name.
we've all seen https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-..., yeah?
Ah yes, the worst is Discord who always says "tu", who are you? do I know you? Did we herd geese together at some point :D ?
"I don't want to be your buddy, Rick. I just want a little breakfast."
Cultural imperialism.
The meaning was never there in the first place, you just were taught that it is there. Adapt.
That's literally all language.
All language is socially constructed. It's still annoying when people try to change the meanings of words.