Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Actually, where it bugs me is in customer service. You never use he/she, 
> but you use sir, mam, miss, mrs, etc., and its too damn easy when tired 
> and/or distracted to mess that up.

  I like Finnish in this regard: There are no gender-specific pronouns,
and while some words equivalent to "sir/madam/etc" exist, they are not
in common usage. Instead, if you want to address someone politely, you
use the polite version of "you", which is still gender-neutral. (The polite
"you" in Finnish is the plural second-person pronoun. I think this is
something common to many languages, including Finnish.)

  Of course this doesn't mean that there's no possibility for messing up
in any context. For example addressing someone by name in third-person in
a very formal context (especially writing) often requires using the
equivalent for "Mr", "Mrs" or "Miss" in Finnish (it has all three).
However, mistakes with these are less frequent because they are seldom
used (especially in spoken language). They are only used in very formal
situations, which are often different from just being polite.

  The need to use "Mr", "Mrs" or "Miss" in spoken Finnish is greatly
reduced by the fact that addressing people by name is uncommon, and not
really part of the culture. Addressing by name, and especially attaching
those honorifics, usually implies formalism.

  This is sometimes actually a tiny problem for Finnish people when they
go to other countries. For example, in the US it's very common to address
people by their name. If I'm not mistaken, it's considered more or less
polite there to address someone by name, and they use the other person's
name rather often when talking with them. Not mentioning the other person's
name even once might be perceived as being rude.

  Finnish people are not accustomed to address people by their name, and
they may sometimes give a slightly rude image of themselves when they go
to the US or other countries where this is different.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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