How is the situation in other countries? In particular, what are the habits
in Japanese? Do they use -masu, -desu, -san?
Joachim
Absolutely. The use of 'keigo' in the usenet as well as at other web sites
is a must.
> Joachim
Right.
Let me add that in any but very superficial discussion of Japanese,
-desu, -masu is not considered keigo, but just "polite". I have little
experience with Japanese Usenet, but I can say that on mailing lists,
there's no shortage of real keigo, e.g. "itashimasu", "gozaimasu" etc.
Pointing out that Usenet is disjoint from Websites is probably too much
nowadays, so please ignore this remark :-)
--
GOGELICH,gogelig, (...) 'fr�hlich, lustig, ausgelassen'
GRIMM, Deutsches W�rterbuch
So no equivalent to the German "Usenet du" and "Wikipedia du".
What can be said about other languages?
Joachim
I don't know whether this has persisted, but when I hung out in
fr.lettres.langue.francaise and .anglaise some years back, the denizens
were proper and used "vous". But I think that might have been unusual
for Usenet.
Do you think that was particular to a language group in French, or why do
you think it might have been unusual.
Joachim
As to the first part of your question: Yes, I'm quite certain that
"vous" isn't used a whole lot in newsgroups where the language in use
isn't French! Regarding the second part: I mean because I've looked in
on occasion at other newsgroups in French and ISTR seeing "tu" rather
than "vous".
So the language fans say "vous"? Is it a prescriptivist group?
Joachim
A couple of the folks were; I don't remember if it was true throughout,
but there was a pervasive protectionist theme regarding English. Some of
the folks were aghast at the use of "global" in place of "mondial", for
example, to mean "worldwide".
It is safe in Japan to use 'keigo' under all circumstances
or else you are in danger of being 'ignored' or 'repulsed'
under some cirucmstances, except for the occasions
where you are on first-name terms with some one,
of course.
> Joachim Pense wrote:
[...]
> > So no equivalent to the German "Usenet du" and "Wikipedia du".
> >
> > What can be said about other languages?
>
> I don't know whether this has persisted, but when I hung out in
> fr.lettres.langue.francaise and .anglaise some years back, the denizens
> were proper and used "vous". But I think that might have been unusual
> for Usenet.
The use of "tu" vs. "vous" varies widely across French-language
Usenet. In many chat-like groups, "tu" is universal, while in
more-erudite groups "vous" is much more common. In
<fr.lettres.langue.francaise> and <fr.lettres.langue.anglaise>,
some long-time regulars address each other as "tu", especially when
a thread drifts off topic. But there are others who are careful
always to "vouvoyer" everyone, and also a few who "tutoyer"
everybody including complete newcomers. It's my impression that
"tu" has slowly gained ground over the years, but I'm not a native
speaker and probably miss a lot of the nuances.
--
Jim Heckman
> So no equivalent to the German "Usenet du" and "Wikipedia du".
>
> What can be said about other languages?
Dutch Usenet jij ~ du ; u ~ Sie would be exceptional.
Of course the Flemish, esp. in Belgian Usenet, tend to revert to
"allround" gij ~ Eng. thou/Am.Sp. vos.