Academic language vs ordinary language

Xie   Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:07 am GMT
>>As for the ma'am and sir thing: I grew up on the East Coast of the US, where those terms are used sparingly, if at all. Easterners aren't much for cordiality. And they have no interest in deference. Sir and ma'am are ass-kissing words there.<<

What do they do then? (though not to say what words do they use)

I can see this point. Back in Hong Kong, I now see that actually many Germans I met on the street back then were more friendly than Hongkongers I'm now facing again. They are two places, but I think in Hong Kong "cordiality" isn't that important either. People use Sir and Madam in such a way ONLY to show deference. But when you have to SHOW deference, then you know, that's not going to be sincere at all. It happens all the time with salespeople everywhere in Hong Kong (I met none of them in Germany. Selling stuff in the Hong Kong style could be frowned upon in both Germany and the East Coast.) They always approach me - well, as long as you look like a young/younger adult, not a kid or not a senior person - and always greet me with a lot of big bargains, offers, etc.
Uriel   Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:35 am GMT
What do they do to show politeness? Well, I guess it was more implied with tone than stated with code words, if I recall correctly (sorry, I moved away when I was 15). You might hear them in a customer service situation where employees HAD to use ma'am and sir, but you didn't hear it much in other interactions.

In contrast, you will hear them in more casual contexts in other parts of the country. I would venture so far as to say that the everyday use of ma'am and sir in the south and out west (and perhaps in the midwest?) is associated with a certain degree of social and cultural conservatism, as it harks back to traditional social patterns. The parts of the country with more liberal and non-traditional societies, like the east and west coasts, don't seem to use ma'am or sir as often, and feel more of an aversion to them.
Guest   Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:01 am GMT
In California, the only usage I see of "sir" and "ma'am" is that of business employee's towards their customers.
Morgan Peeers   Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:33 am GMT
Hello Uriel

Your experience reminds me of the British Telecom Call Centre where we were expected to work the word 'Sorry' into the conversation as many times as possible.

Although in the guidelines manual it did point out that you were saying 'Sorry for the Company - on behalf of the Company' and not 'Sorry - that you work for the Company'.

I found that Americans who often received dreadful treatment because they did not understand how things worked would approach these 'Help Lines' with an extremely dead pan voice in an effort to hide all emotion, and be rational.
Xie   Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:17 pm GMT
Thanks for the interesting points. I think the foreigners now will remember me for having said a lot of unnecessary sorry's back then. While it may not be very well-known, Hongkongers are also known for being quite polite, although they tend to be mute in very crowded environments and avoid all kinds of direct interactions, including eye contact, saying sorry to the person at the front that you step on, etc - crowded environments aren't unique, but I received at least not as good treatment in Guangzhou, also Cantonese-speaking, where people simply literally bump into you because it's too crowded, and don't give a damn whether you are hurt.

And since I didn't dress like illiterate/very rough guys in mainland China, and apparently have some fashion sense, people always asked whether I was Japanese. In this kind of questions, they always asked "Japanese or Chinese?", with Japanese being the first guess, and no Korean at all.

So, I'd now say they, in Europe, generally regard the Japanese as the most commonplace visitors with Asian complexions, the most polite ones, the most stupid ones (in ripping them off), almost the only group that would ever have the chance/money to visit this continent, etc. On the other hand, the Chinese were generally regarded as those very poor peasants who can't even leave their country, are illiterate, won't appear abroad, won't speak foreign, etc. They don't know where the Koreans are, perhaps. I've heard multiple times from German acquaintances that some people wrongly assumed that Hong Kong belongs to Japan or is the Japanese capital.

Well, indeed, younger people here like me do look Japanese. Many of us unintentionally dress rather like Japanese (since Japan is pretty much the most famous Asian country with a "modern" image), and many of us are almost as polite as the Japanese. But in general, I personally can't distinguish at all between "paler Asian-looking" people, except those who fit stereotypes (of both western or even Hong Kong origin) perfectly.
.   Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:29 pm GMT
Where ever we have been in Europe we have always eaten 'Unlimited Buffet for a Fixed Price' at Chinese restaurants, as this is by far the best value.

In the UK, if you see a Chinese looking person, the liklihood is that they are Chinese.

I have seen Chinese looking people who have very different features. It is interesting! I am sure that China is a big place.
Xie   Sun Sep 06, 2009 7:45 am GMT
Lucky you, I didn't see that in Germany, but that would be very commonplace in Chinese restaurants, namely the hot pot.

China is nominally and culturally united, but in fact it would just be another Europe, where there are hundreds of dialects and people that I don't even understand very well. Although almost everybody without an "ethnic" background claims to be Han, no one can tell exactly whether they are Han at all. To claim to be Chinese could be in fact as vague as European.

Among the young locals, I look atypical for being rather pale; but among waishengren, I'm typically "Southern". The same kind of nationals have a lot of different complexions.
Travis   Sun Sep 06, 2009 9:21 am GMT
>>What do they do to show politeness? Well, I guess it was more implied with tone than stated with code words, if I recall correctly (sorry, I moved away when I was 15). You might hear them in a customer service situation where employees HAD to use ma'am and sir, but you didn't hear it much in other interactions.

In contrast, you will hear them in more casual contexts in other parts of the country. I would venture so far as to say that the everyday use of ma'am and sir in the south and out west (and perhaps in the midwest?) is associated with a certain degree of social and cultural conservatism, as it harks back to traditional social patterns. The parts of the country with more liberal and non-traditional societies, like the east and west coasts, don't seem to use ma'am or sir as often, and feel more of an aversion to them.<<

At least here in the Upper Midwest, the only people who really commonly use "sir" and "ma'am" seem to be black people who brought such with them from the South. While rural areas of the Upper Midwest can often be very conservative, the pattern of conservatism there seems to more typical rural conservative pattern that that seems to have more in common with that found in rural areas of Germanic Europe in general than that surviving from the antebellum social order of the South. Similarly, conservatives in urban and suburban areas here often tend to take a pattern that would be called "liberal" rather than a true traditional conservative pattern (as in the case of much of Europe before the French Revolution), and consequently really do not have such sorts of retained tendencies.
.   Sun Sep 06, 2009 2:52 pm GMT
Antebellum (from the Latin ante, "before," and bellum, "war")


Before the war



Wars tend to change things. Wars are decision points in history. Battles are decision points in wars.



There is a debate as to whether change can be brought about by debate alone.


Is it possible for the vested interests in the United States relinquish their dominance without the need for them to be violently overthrown?

Communism

Islamic fundamentalism

Who or what will be the new enemy of 'Freedom'?
Travis Bemann   Sun Sep 06, 2009 4:05 pm GMT
You obviously do not understand what the term "antebellum" means in the case of the South; it most clearly refers to the South before the Civil War, and nothing else.