The Old New Thing

Musings on formal and informal address

April 26, 2004 Apr 26, 2004 04/26/04

Raymond Chen

My entry about Good-Bye, Lenin! appears to have turned into a discussion of formal and informal terms of address in various languages and cultures. Sweden effectively abolished the "du"/"ni" distinction in the 1970's during the so-called "du-reform", getting rid of the formal "ni" and having everybody address each other as "du" - even...