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f you are coming form a more direct culture you definitely notice the added layer of politeness to everything Brits will kill me for this, but it's more of an

by toyg 4y ago

f you are coming form a more direct culture you definitely notice the added layer of politeness to everything Brits will kill me for this, but it's more of an European thing - the Brits just preserved it a bit more aggressively than others, because they never actually abolished the aristocratic system that generated it.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>it's more of an European thing Not true. Go to Eastern Europe and see. You'll get much less unintentional smiles or politeness than in the UK.
- toyg 4y ago
  > Not true. Go to Eastern Europe and see. Oh oh, "yes true", and your note confirms it... What did Eastern Europe aggressively do, in the last century? Destroy aristocracy. So they are at the opposite end of that particular scale.
  - oblio 4y ago
    > What did Eastern Europe aggressively do, in the last century? Destroy aristocracy. Well, I wasn't a big fan of it, but the reality of the matter is... for most of us, someone else destroyed our aristocracy (and all of our intelligentsia with it) for us.
notahacker 4y ago
Tbh a lot of the aristocratic address stuff that's still present in other languages is long gone from British English, except for people employed as butlers and people sarcastically mimicking the forms of address used by butlers. Even Americans are more likely to address people as "Sir" than Britons under pensionable age, and English hasn't had the polite second person pronoun most languages do for a long time, never mind involving a dilemma over whether to use a construction that would literally translate as "would your grace..." in everyday interactions to avoid people getting upset by the overfamiliarity of "you"! We do love deliberate understatement, evasion and saying please a lot though!
ogogmad 4y ago
British English has a very flat hierarchy, with no T/V distinction as found in French or Russian, and very little use of honorifics or titles (even for authority figures like university professors). British politeness is not based on hierarchy, but based on (sometimes excessive) apologising for inconvenience.

by toyg 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>it's more of an European thing Not true. Go to Eastern Europe and see. You'll get much less unintentional smiles or politeness than in the UK.

toyg 4y ago
> Not true. Go to Eastern Europe and see. Oh oh, "yes true", and your note confirms it... What did Eastern Europe aggressively do, in the last century? Destroy aristocracy. So they are at the opposite end of that particular scale.
- oblio 4y ago
  > What did Eastern Europe aggressively do, in the last century? Destroy aristocracy. Well, I wasn't a big fan of it, but the reality of the matter is... for most of us, someone else destroyed our aristocracy (and all of our intelligentsia with it) for us.

notahacker 4y ago

Tbh a lot of the aristocratic address stuff that's still present in other languages is long gone from British English, except for people employed as butlers and people sarcastically mimicking the forms of address used by butlers. Even Americans are more likely to address people as "Sir" than Britons under pensionable age, and English hasn't had the polite second person pronoun most languages do for a long time, never mind involving a dilemma over whether to use a construction that would literally translate as "would your grace..." in everyday interactions to avoid people getting upset by the overfamiliarity of "you"! We do love deliberate understatement, evasion and saying please a lot though!

ogogmad 4y ago

British English has a very flat hierarchy, with no T/V distinction as found in French or Russian, and very little use of honorifics or titles (even for authority figures like university professors). British politeness is not based on hierarchy, but based on (sometimes excessive) apologising for inconvenience.