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Comment by tauchunfall | Hacker News Reader

>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.

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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.

Interesting how you write "Du" and not "du". I'm French and I've been living in Germany for 20 years. I understand and use "du/Sie" more or less appropriately (we have the same dichotomy in French). What I still cannot wrap my head around after all this time is why/when some people use "du/Du", "dein/Dein", "dich/Dich" in writing (to be clear: not at the beginning of a sentence). I guess "Du" is somewhere inbetween "du" und "Sie" on the politeness scala but I never dared to ask. I'm only using lowercase "du". What would be a rule of thumb on how/when to use the uppercase "Du"?

"Du" and "du" are generally 100% equivalent. Regular casing-rules apply, e.g. in the beginning of a sentence it's "Du" but inside it's "du". "Kannst du mir helfen?". "Du kannst dir doch selbst helfen!"

Sometimes it's written "Du" even if in the middle of the sentence when addressing someone directly. It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.

The same can happen with other words that are getting capitalized for similar reasons, but when going strictly by the book it's grammatically incorrect. An example would be "das Große Ganze" where it should be "große" but it is capitalized to emphasize the connection/phrase.

>It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.

That's wrong, it's not technically incorrect. In fact before 2006 the only correct way to address someone personally in written form was to capitalize the Du / Sie / Ihr. Since then you are allowed to write it either way. I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.

Fair enough.

> Since then you are allowed to write it either way

Okay, my interpretation is that it doesn't really make sense within the language rules, so they changed it but allowed to use the old style to make the transition easier. ;-)

> I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.

Impossible to keep up with all the Rechtschreibreformen anyways.

Thank you and nosebear for the clarification! Now I understand better why some of my colleagues (like my boss, older) use "Du" and some don't. I'll stick to not using it, there are enough grammatic pitfalls elsewhere in the German language (not that French is any easier for foreigners, I'm sure).

I love and hate German for this; it's a language whose formal pitfalls and vagaries seem almost designed to sort people into highly-refined strata of education.

It must be so cool to see all of them "from the top" (i.e. someone who has been natively-and-highly educated, immersed in the language for their whole life); but it's from the outside it's like a fancy club that you just can't seem to get into :)

It seems sort of like calling other people ma'am and sir in America. Everyone knows what those words mean, but younger people will almost never use them (except in specific American subcultures). Some people may be offended if you call them sir/ma'am.

The YouTube algorithm has seen fit to serve me a bunch of American police bodycam videos lately. I find it super bizarre that a policeman will address everyone as sir. Including some deranged crackhead, without pants, charging at him with a sword. Decidedly not a "sir".

In Denmark nobody adresses each other formally, unless you're royalty. Parliament also does it during debates, but that's pretty much it. It's weird when it happens, and it's usually some store clerk that does it out of a misguided attempt at politeness, but to me at least it has the opposite effect. I am not a Hr. (sir), I'm just some dickhead buying cigarettes at 1 AM.

I Denmark we at least pretend everyone is equal. The CEO of the company is just John. We eat lunch in the same break room at the same time.

US English doesn’t really have an informal version of “sir” for the situation you described. Closest would be “hey” or “yo” etc. but those aren’t even (pro)nouns.

Sounds like a duel with a knight, so "sir" feels appropriate.

More seriously, I think it's possible that "sir" can be used in a way that casts everyone as equals. Like, you can be in a crackhead's den and recognize that he is in important person in that environment.

The way US cops talk is a whole thing. It’s one of the most-distinctive job-related American English variants. Even more so than white-collar “business English” (“let’s take this offline and circle back to it, as per my prior email”)

Some of it’s weird posturing (I’d put the “sir” thing in that category) and a bunch of it’s a combination of actually-effective and folk-supposed-effective ways of speaking to dazzle jurors, plus probably some other motivations and influences thrown in (some Hollywood-military turns of phrase and vocabulary, certainly)

In Spanish the Police/Civil Guard (militarized police) does the same, they will address you like "Disculpe, caballero" - excuse me, (Gentle) Sir. They will address you very formaly, and you might shit bricks on the road in case you messed up something or have a faulty light.

I think it also highly depends on where you're from.

Traditionally in Bavaria you'd have used "Du/Ihr" in shops or on the streets colloquially even decades ago, and yet from time to time you'd ran into people (always from Northern Germany) who seemed very surprised you'd not use "Sie/Ihnen".

Of course I'm overgeneralizing and I think I've had like 2 jobs in my life (since the late 90s) where some people were called Herr/Frau X instead of the just the first name, be it IT or not.

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'.

In the weird edge cases you can simply err on the side of politeness and use the formal version. Worst case scenario they'll simply tell you to drop it and use tu instead.

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

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