formal and informal language

Hell yeah infodumps! I'm from Sydney, Australia for data purposes.

My parents are Mum and Dad, 'my Mum' and 'my Dad' to strangers usually unless it's a very formal situation. My little sister calls them 'mother/father' or by their first names if she's being facetious or teasing them, and otherwise uses the same as me. Teachers are always Title Surname (we had a few Drs and it was just the Done Thing to refer to them as that), but some teachers had nicknames if they were on good terms with the students. Some of the more traditional teachers would get snippy if we referred to their colleagues by their nicknames in front of them, though. Sports teachers almost always went by a nickname. Our year advisor was teasingly referred to as Mum for her mother-hen attitude towards us. Interestingly, I went to a private school, but at a local public school it was usual to refer to teachers as Sir/Miss, and my Nan, who taught at a public school in a different state, remarked that she found it disrespectful. Uni professors are usually first name-basis, except for Japanese teachers who are firstname-sensei, of course. Being largely in IT and liberal arts probably helped there.

Extended family - my mum's mum is my Nan, my dad's mum is Grandma. My parents-in-law (sort of) are their firstnames. Friend's parents are whatever they're introduced to me as; I try to avoid using any specific name/title in speech unless I'm certain of what they prefer. My maternal aunt told me off pretty severely for calling her by her first name once; all of my aunts/uncles are Aunt/Uncle [name], and it's a big deal when their spouses get upgraded to aunt/uncle status. One of my aunts is Auntie Bear for some reason. And I don't have grandpas so no data there, but if I'm referring to them then they're 'my paternal grandpa' and 'my maternal grandfather'. All of my great-aunts/uncles are Aunt/Uncle [name] because they don't like to be reminded how old they are.

Strangers are usually sir/miss, but that's because I'm used to retail. :P

 

my mom and dad are, well, mom and dad (though when I was younger, up until around ~17, they were 'mommy' and 'daddy') while my step-parents are both referred to by first names, and other previous marriage partners are referred to by first name

(my stepmom tried to pull the "well you can call me mom (because I'm going to try and cut all contact with your real mother because I'm obscenely jealous of her for some reason despite the fact that she's been happily remarried for like five years at this point and was never actually romantically interested in your dad in the first place)" thing on me and I... just kept referring to her by her first name anyways. because she wasn't my mom. it didn't actually process to me at the time that she was trying to push me away from my mom, but in retrospect it's really obvious)

most of my aunts/uncles got the prefix until I was considered an adult by family standards (so somewhere around 15) at which point the prefix was dropped and it became a first-name basis sort of thing. my grandparents were 'grammy', 'granny', and 'papa' respectively, though 'granny' is now 'gigi (GG)' since my sister had her daughter, and we've all transitioned to calling my mom 'granny' and my stepdad 'papa john' when the little ones are around

teachers mostly got mr./mrs. (or professor these days) for the first few weeks, and then I inevitably end up referring to them by last names exclusively

strangers get sir/ma'am regardless of what status they seem to look like, because standards of politeness I was raised with require "please, thank you, sir, and ma'am" as punctuation, so even if it's just someone I'm giving my order to through the drive thru, I'll end up sir-ing and ma'am-ing the entire time

mostly if I know someone's proper title, I try to refer to them by that. I know a sergeants, and I'm a little more conscious of proper rank than I am of societal standing (I still can't tell when I'm supposed to use Ms./Miss/Mrs.) so if I don't have a proper rank to assign someone, I end up defaulting to last names exclusively, because they're easier for me to remember than first names

eta: USA resident, though I couldn't pinpoint an actual region for you if I tried; primarily Southern raised parents though, so that accounts for a little of the cultural basis

 

interesting! i read all the replies ages ago and haven't had time to get back to the thread, but off the top of my head it seems like there's a lot more variation in addressing teachers than in addressing family, especially parents.

i'm sure the formal/informal language thing comes up in other places, but right now all that comes to mind is the gradation of yes sir or ma'am/yes/yeah or yep or uh-huh.

when i was a kid my parents objected to me using really informal responses like "yeah" when responding to them. now (i'm 26) i say "yeah" to them and don't hear anything about it.

i noticed the other day that i was using the most informal, terse responses i thought i could get away with with an older relative that i dislike. probably no one else noticed or cared - people aren't that formal with their grandparents any more - but it was somehow important to me that i never once said "yes ma'am" or even "yes."

does anyone else notice their speech patterns changing depending on person/situation?

 

My mom is "Mom", and I usually use a title when speaking to authority figures (ie teachers, etc). But otherwise my English is usually pretty informal?? Which admittedly might not be a good thing but that's just my habit. In text, I'm also informal unless I'm doing some kind of customer service... then I pretty much just write the way I was taught in my technical writing class.

In Japanese I do consistently use honorifics for authority figures and people I don't know well, though. Even acquaintances that I've met a few times get -san, unless it's irl and they're not Japanese. Online, everyone gets -san except friends.

Otherwise though, when I'm speaking Japanese I'm super fuckin casual for the most part and it's a Real Problem because sometimes I slip up and talk to people casually that I probably shouldn't. Most of my Japanese interactions are online now, but when I was in Japan I felt really bad about it and tried to stop doing it (with... a little success).


I don't know if this is off-topic (sorry if it is) but this thread did remind me of something I noticed about the read me files I include in my products on Second Life, though. The Enlgish ones are always written at about the lowest level of formality above outright casual speech (it's really hard for me to describe what I mean, so I'm sorry for anyone who's not a native speaker!). But my Japanese read me files are always much more polite because they're usually written in keigo (the fancy polite Japanese used in business). I think it's interesting because honestly I wouldn't find the English ones particularly impolite, but they're still comparatively way more casual than my Japanese ones.

In retrospect I'm sorry if like, half of that was off-topic.

 

@smallgayghoul no, that's on topic and interesting! now i'm wondering - is there not a level of japanese that matches the not-quite-casual english you used for those files and is still polite enough for that kind of document? or is the low-level-formal english equivalent to keigo?

 

Hmm, I'm not really sure! I'm proficient in Japanese, but polite language can be a challenge for me since it's my second language. Politeness levels are a little more rigid in Japanese as far as I can tell, compared to English. I think it might help that I took a class on business Japanese, so for, well, business, I default to what I learned in that class.

 

Spoiler: Parent Address babble

Bio XX - Momma, usually. Mom for short. "My Mom" to third parties. BPDmom online.
Step XY - Raised as from age 3 onward to be addressed as Daddy, recent developments to Dad to his face and in the household, Firstname to third parties, NRAdad / GOPdad online

Bio XY - Dad to his face, Firstname to third parties offline, NPDdad / NarcDad online
Step XX - Not actually my stepmother, as she and my father were never married and haven't been together for three years, but definitely family and definitely what one considers a mom. Always addressed directly using second person because we generally speak one-on-one, use her given name freely after the age of 11, when she insisted Miss L--- was too formal and weird, just L--- for chrissake. Spergmom online.

As far as professionals without formal titles, always Mr / Mrs LastName.
Professionals with titles are addressed as such, no exceptions.

My parents raised me to address all non-professional adults as Mr / Miss Firstname, which I guess is a Southern Thang. We were told it was a marker of respect, which I'm not sure how much I believe. In turn, most of the people I addressed as such expected it, even called me Miss Firstname when I was addressed (which was rare, because children are to be Seen Not Heard).

Also yes sir/no ma'am gets a step up from our vocabulary within the household. Occasionally if answering a beckon from someone to be respected, or if something isn't quite clear, a confused or questioning "Sir?" or "Ma'am?" slips out. Because the word "What?" is disrespectful. ("Don't "what" me." "Excuse me?" "-refusal to answer at all until wording corrected-")

 

Hmmm interesting! For reference, southern US with Midwest family background
Interchangeably call parents by their given names or mom, mama, ommom and dad, daddy, poppop. Started calling them by their names in middle school, which my friends all thought was weird. No reaction from parents that they thought it was disrespectful.
My close childhood friend "yes sir" and "yes ma'am"s her parents and even as a kid that weirded me out.
Call grandfather grandpa. When multiple grandparents were alive, called them "grandma/pa last name" or, to my parents "your mom"
Call aunts and uncles by their names if we're super close (or I'm talking about them in 3rd person to my parents), or "uncle first name" or just "auntie". (I have tons of aunts and uncles)
Call cousins by first name regardless of relative ages.
Call teachers Ms/Mr last name, except favorite creative writing teacher who was just "yo, last name!" In college, professors are Dr Last name or "professor" or, among students just "last name". Except some arts professors who asked to be called by their given name or Ms last name or whatever.
Working in a nursery, all the teachers are "Ms First name"(no male workers just now, but I think the last one was just called by his first name). Sometimes the kids (toddlers) are ms/mr first name like, to make them feel grown up or something, I'm not sure.
In shops the cashier is sir/ma'am with an affected thick southern drawl and a smile, or just "thanks, you have a nice day" without a direct form of address. If I needed to talk to an older stranger I would probably use ma'am or sir unironically. Strangers my age are generally "hey, dude!"

ETA my parents were ONLY mom and dad for a while when I was a teen because I was ~too grown up to say mama or daddy. When I moved out they became "any combination of syllables": ama, baba, momom and it drives my sister absolutely nuts