Hey, if you ever want to introduce some protocol into a practically no-protocol dynamic, just get yourself a house with servant's stairs.
I swear, my head almost swims with all the stair rules. Take the front stairs when the kids are awake, because I must show them I am in charge of the house in the Captain's absence. Take the back stairs when the kids are in bed. Always take the front stairs when carrying the baby, because "the boy doesn't go down the servant's stairs". (Bonus hilarity points if you refer to the baby as "the young Master".)
Okay, I guess that's only three rules. Still, coming from having never had to consider stairs in any way, it's rather a lot to take on board. I mean, they're stairs, for fuck's sake.
And speaking of segues, I have a language question, because I'm a language nerd and I think about these sorts of things.
The other night I got to thinking about how so often one hears English-speaking subs and slaves insist that they don't address anyone other than their own bossy-sort with an honorific, because no one else is the boss of them, et cetera and so forth. And I was thinking how very glad I am that English doesn't have a formal you form like, say, French or German, because I have a hard enough time remembering to switch to calling the Captain "Master" after the kids are in bed. Having to switch from an informal tu or du to a vous or Sie every day would probably do my head in.
Which brings me, in my roundabout way, to my question. If you speak a language that already has a formal you, do you habitually address other toppy types with it? Do you only use it until you are introduced and acquainted and then switch to the informal you? Do you have particular orders regarding the use of the formal and informal you? Do you snub people you don't especially care for by using the formal you with them?
Please, let me know. This has been bugging me for a couple of days. :D
I especially enjoy your last question. The thought of doing that tickles me enough to go learn one of those languages and then meet a bunch of folks I don't like who speak it just so I can dis them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, EEK at the stairs rules.
good questions about the vous and the tu. I have no answers though. But I can see myself doing things that same way.
ReplyDeleteAnd the bit with the stairs made me smile.
i always use vous when talking to people, until they tell me i can use tu. Sir doesn't speak french, so he doesn't care..thank god, cuz if my mom ever heard me referring to someone older than me with "tu", she'd kick my butt.
ReplyDelete@Conina
ReplyDeleteI know it's done in German, at least. It's a bit of an ice douche, really.
@sin
The stairs will be the death of me, I swear.
@bubblegumpunk
Thanks for the answer! I imagine your Sir not being a francophone is handy. :D
In Swedish there are two forms, "du" as the informal one and "ni" as the more formal (like tu and vous). But there is two big differences from the French - which form you use doesn't change the grammar of the sentence, it's still singular all the way, and also, we kind of stopped using it in the 60's. Now "ni" is only used by clerks to customers, or maybe by customers to clerks. And not everyone thinks that's particularly polite.
ReplyDeleteAnd actually even before the 60's it wasn't all that polite. It was the way you referred to someone lower in status than yourself, servers or help, people you didn't know and whom you didn't look up to.
The respectful and correct way of adressing anybody you respected but who wasn't your immediate family was byt title. "Would the Doctor have some more tea?" for example, as opposed to "Would you have som more tea, Doctor?". Even "he" or "she" was prefered over "du" or "ni". Very, very cumbersome.
So if my Mistress and I would do that kind of polite speach, it would be by me calling her Mistress in any reference, never "you" in any form, and her possibly calling me "her" whenever she adressed me. Or we could both avoid the issue and only use passive forms - "would there be any more tea?" for example.
And this is not crazy slave talk. :-) This is polite Swedish conversation up to the 1950-60s. Phu! I'm glad they reformed it...