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Saturday, December 21, 2013
Awkward situations: Let's 'du' it.
Like many languages other than English, German makes a distinction between a formal 'you', or Sie relationship with someone and an informal 'you', or du relationship, depending on who you're talking to, how long you've know them, their age, position, etc.
One of the jokes students know and love about how English doesn't distinguish this is the phrase, "you can say you to me." I believe it was one of the German foreign ministers who said that to Margaret Thatcher, which, obviously, is ridiculous. Even more so than JFK's famous, "I am a jelly donut".
"You can say you to me." Um, ok...
Now, in German, where there is this du and Sie relationship, you can always offer the du or the Sie, as you wish, and as long as it's appropriate. They call it to 'duzen' and 'siezen' one another.
If you translate it to English and you want to be friendly, aka du, you end up saying, "you can do me. Please, I insist. Do me." Or, "Should we do each other?", which in English might be misunderstood as a different friendly offer, which may have happened to some of us...accidentally...before we realized the mistake.
"Should we do each other?"
"Excuse me?"
I mean when I first meet people I'm friendly, but not that friendly...unless it's Henry Cavill. Then I might make an exception.
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