Today I must report the imminent collapse of polite society as we know it.
That's what certain French social media refuseniks
would have you believe, anyway. For it seems that the enfant terrible of
the Internet – Twitter – and its users, have adopted the convention of
referring to others online using the informal second-person pronoun tu
rather than its more formal and polite equivalent, vous.
To monolingual English readers, this issue may be about as interesting as
watching fifty shades of grey paint drying; but to anyone with even minimal
knowledge of foreign languages, it's a huge deal. It's
so important that when, aged 21, I was living in Germany and had
joined a choir, an older singer asked earnestly and in perfect English:
"Can I say you to you?"
How could I refuse? I explained that English no longer had German’s
distinctions in its pronouns and she was free to address me using
you. We laughed about it. But back then,
everyone knew their place and the Internet had yet to sound the death knell for
deference and politeness. Fast-forward to 2012 and this current debate merely
signifies – online, at least – the obsolescence of the distinction.
The use of
tu and vous in French or du and Sie in
German is predicated on certain key criteria: the age of the people involved in
the interaction; their respective statuses relative to each other and the degree
of familiarity between them. The article even asserts that tu is used as
a form of violence between two drivers who do not know each other. But the prevalence of familiar forms
online would suggest that, notwithstanding other contextual details to the
contrary, no such offence is intended. Anyone offended is simply applying
mutually accepted social norms from one social sphere in another – where no
such norms exist. Or do people preface their online posts with phrases such as:
"I am a mature person with a high-powered job. This makes me
considerably richer than you. Hence I would never meet the likes of you in real
life and you shall address me accordingly."? Alternatively, unless you
were interested in dating your correspondent, would you request their age/sex/location/status
before agreeing to engage with them at all?
Magazine director Laurent Joffrin may bemoan the perceived lack of respect that
tu signifies. But can we demand it from the outset? Respect
has to be earned. Status alone cannot confer it. There is also no mention of
the confusion that may arise in French given that vous is also the
second-person plural pronoun. The same pronoun may, context
permitting, refer to one person and many people simultaneously. We often
'broadcast' online to as many people as possible. Equally we may address one
person but hope that others read what we write. We may even wish to blur any
such distinctions. But how do people tell the difference? Universally using tu
for one person and vous for more than one person may make this
Internet-specific distinction clear.
We must concede, however, that while a move from the formal to the familiar is
possible by mutual agreement; the reverse is impossible. Maybe it’s this
irreversible trend that Joffrin despises. But without the smokescreen of
respect and deference, his attitude merely demonstrates a refusal to accept the
egalitarian ethos of the Internet itself.
Is the formal you respect or deference? That’s an open question, I don’t know.
ReplyDeletePara 5 ’respect has to be earned’. The conclusion of this is that all correspondence should be initially mutually respectful. Most especially on the internet with strangers.
Deference is not the same thing. One defers to older and wiser heads. I called my teachers sir. They called me by my surname. The system worked.
(On the internet I suggest that we should address each other as ‘my right honourable friend’ initially, which is deferential but also an insult as spoken in Parliament. Sounds just right!)
Of course correspondence should be mutually respectful. But my main point was that if tu has almost become the preferred form of address, then bemoaning its use as such *must* be espousing the deference model. The Internet encourages respect in other ways (codes of conduct, moderators, etc.). Thus, against prevalent practice, if I now insist on being addressed as vous, I am demanding deference dressed up as respect and, possibly, manufacturing non-existent offence if I don't get what I want. Your suggestion at the end serves to illustrate just how *old* rules no longer apply. Parliament has also changed. But this is precisely why the debate exists – as people seek to navigate their way through new and emerging social environments, be they online or elsewhere.
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