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Fritz,<br><br>You remind me that there are many ways to express the respect. love or tenderness aside from use of different personal pronouns.<br>For example traditional Arab address to a wife is: O daughter of my uncle!<br>In the older days a Jew writing to his wife addressed: Ayyelet ha-shahar (O [my]<br>morning gazelle. The respectful address to the parents: O my teacher parent owner of this house and O my teacher mother mistress of this house (with slight variations. A regular Israeli today use address Metukka sheli (O my sweet [one]) to his wife which roughly coinsides with Honey of Americans, etc.<br><br>Simple people in USA use address: Boss, rarer Chief (or formal Sir) to show respect or to express irony. If they would have today distinction You/Thou they would not need to use this form of address. <br><br>Hayim Sheynin<br> <br><br><b><i>Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling@sil.org></i></b> wrote:<blockquote
class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <!-- Network content --> <div id="ygrp-text"> <div> <!-- Network content --> </div><div class="Section1"> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;">I have worked with an African language which, of course, does not have the you/thou (tu/vous) distinction but where respect and politeness is expressed by other means. Some wives still address their husbands as “my master” like Sara to Abraham in the Bible. The younger generation does not do that any more, but wives cannot address their husbands by their first names. They might address him by
“father of my children” or “older brother”.<o></o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;">I know of couple where the husband is African and the wife Caucasian. He is significantly older. They speak French with one another. In public he wants her to address him by “vous.”<o></o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;">Maybe someone should write a book on forms of address in different languages. As this thread is entitled “The irony of thou”, one could spin this further and ask about “thou/vous/usted” used in irony or sarcasm. But that information would probably not be included in a dictionary.<o></o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;"><o> </o></span></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;">Fritz<o></o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;"><o> </o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;"><o> </o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black;">Bill Poser wrote:<o></o></span></font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br> On another aspect of this, I knew a French couple in which the<br> husband used tu toward his wife while she used vous toward her<br> husband. Even the oldest people I know regarded this as odd.<br> It isn't clear if it is really archaic or just
idiosyncratic.<br> The man was 15 years older than his wife, who was his former<br> secretary, and of a rather authoritarian bent. (He subscribed to<br> the newspaper of the monarchist-fascist movement and expressed<br> agreement with its editorials.)<br> <br> <o></o></span></font></div> </div> <!--End group email --><div></div> </div> <!--End group email --> </blockquote><br><p>
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