4 ms·
I don't know where you're at but I have never seen this treated as that big of a deal in my 8 years of living in Austria & 7 in Germany unless you're talking to
by ido 6y ago
I don't know where you're at but I have never seen this treated as that big of a deal in my 8 years of living in Austria & 7 in Germany unless you're talking to the prime minister (and especially not if you're obviously not a native speaker).
Maybe more comparable to addressing someone by their first name instead of Mr./Ms./Mrs. <last-name>.
- pvitz 6y agoThat might not be an issue on the countryside (everything outside Vienna ;), but it is definitely very impolite to address another adult person with "du" instead of "Sie" if they have not offered you to call them with the informal pronoun. However, that might be different with younger people.
- Merem 6y agoMost definitely. Being relatively young, I don't think it's any different. In a work environment it's always "Sie", until one is offered "du". First name/family name depends on how companies/individuals handle it. Apart from that, people handle it differently. "Sie" basically always for people older than you and some use "du" for others around your age (unless it's in a more professional setting). There is no difference between the countryside and cities.
- bigiain 6y agoI wonder if I'm the only person stomping round the house now singing: Sie! Sie hast! Sie Hast Mich!
- ginko 6y ago*Sie haben
- ido 6y agoI would guess they misspelled "hasst" ("she hates me")?
- bigiain 6y agoI guess 23 year old industrial metal songs aren't shared cultural references on HN the way I'd assumed... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3q8Od5qJio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3q8Od5qJio
- ginko 6y agoIt's intentional wordplay. They lyrics are "Du hast" and it follows up with "Du hast mich gefragt".
- type0 6y agoSeems to be true for Vienna. I'm not native speaker and can say that some people weren't pleased to be called "du" (same age or not) and the whole city seems very formal.
- usrusr 6y agoDu/Sie and first name/last name are almost without exception divided along the same lines in German. Sie plus first name is how a person with extreme status expectations would address their butler, and just as old-fashioned. "I'm sorry you can never be my peer but I respect you anyways". Last name and Du would be using the last name as a nickname in a decidedly first name situation. Think "bro" but timeless.
- Merem 6y ago"Sie" and first name was used at a smallish company (~50 employees) I worked at previously. It's just a combination of respect and familiarity. Additionally, several women really liked being called by their first name as it "made them feel less old".
- xnyan 6y agoThis was common in the United States Southeast as a kid and still is to a lesser degree e.g. ”Miss Anne, please can I go outside?”
- eru 6y agoOh, there's more to it. Compare https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_Sie https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_Sie I can vouch for the Kassiererinnen-Du being used. My mom runs the butcher in a supermarket. She and and many of her coworkers share a lot about themselves, but they still address each as other as Frau Schmidt and Herr Schulze.
- cat199 6y agoApparently mincing one thing and putting it between a pari of two other things is a specialty of Hamburg, who knew!