Why Koreans ask what year you were born
bryanhogan.com218 points by bryanhogan 6 days ago
218 points by bryanhogan 6 days ago
I find it surprising actually how much these seniority rules are well-defined in many cultures, but in Brazil there is strong variation - even in the same geography. For example, a colleague who is learning Brazilian Portuguese was under the impression that "você" and "tu" were the equivalent of "vous/tu" or "Sie/du". In reality, they are just different regional ways of saying the informal you. In Brazilian Portuguese is to call someone "o Senhor/a Senhora" based on their gender, with a singular third person declination. And in the countryside, it is common to hear people use "Doutor/Doutora" the same way they would use the normal formal language when addressing educated people or land-owners.
Another example many people outside Brazil find interesting: in my family we were taught to never use the formal towards anyone. The rationale is that everyone is equal and that using the formal language was disrespectful because it created an artificial distance between us and the other person. We were also taught never to use the formal language when praying for the same reason. However, other people are taught to use the formal language towards bosses and elders, also with a respect rationale, and some other folks in Brazil (even from big cities) actually require that their children address them with formal language. So now when in doubt I use the formal language with people that are much older than I am although that feels utterly unnatural to me, but I always make people comfortable to use the informal with me as I personally find this to be more respectful.
Just one more comment: in Brazil it is unfortunately the case that some offices have a standard treatment like "your excellency", etc, which are nominally meant to respect the office but in reality become a kind of test of compliance and obedience. I recall in particular one incident where an attorney presenting in front of the Supreme Court was severely reprimanded for not address justices with the proper term. Personally, I am not sure that required compliance with a style - by regulation or by societal expectations - is indeed "respect" if it is not matched with actions and posture that really reflect due consideration towards the other person.
> Another example many people outside Brazil find interesting: in my family we were taught to never use the formal towards anyone. The rationale is that everyone is equal and that using the formal language was disrespectful because it created an artificial distance between us and the other person. We were also taught never to use the formal language when praying for the same reason.
Interestingly this is why Quakers continued to address people as thou/thee long after everyone else abandoned the practice. Thou was originally the "informal" second person singular pronoun in English, "you" was plural. People used "thou" (the familiar form) in conversations with God. People used "you" as a singular pronoun to be polite. Eventually, "you" overtook thou.
But the Quakers believed that using "you" to show respect was anti-egalitarian and resisted the trend for a long time.
Nowadays because "thou" appears a lot in the King James Bible it tends to be associated with formal, archaic language, so if anything the connotation is the reverse.
> People used "thou" (the familiar form) in conversations with God. People used "you" as a singular pronoun to be polite.
Why didn't people address God with "you"?
> Why didn't people address God with "you"?
Even today, this tends to be the case in European languages that distinguish familiar and polite pronouns (what linguists call the T-V distinction). God tends to be an exception to the usual T-V rules.
The reason for this is that in all these languages, thou started out as simply the singular and you as the plural, with no politeness dimension at all. Using the plural pronoun (or third person pronouns, etc) for politeness was a fad that only spread around Europe in the Middle Ages (give or take).
Religious formulae, however, are generally extremely resistant to language change. This is a very consistent finding across the world; some of our best evidence in historical linguistics comes from religious texts (such as the Rigveda, the Avesta, etc). Religion tends to be, not surprisingly, a highly conservative and ritualised domain.
Thus, prayers in European languages with the T-V distinction generally retain the use of T forms when addressing God. There are all sorts of lovely folk explanations for this, but the real reason is basically just because prayers predate the T-V system altogether.
That isn't a fossilized exception, it's intentional. God is supposed to be close and personal.
The wiki article I linked goes into it a bit:
> Early English translations of the Bible used the familiar singular form of the second person, which mirrors common usage trends in other languages. The familiar and singular form is used when speaking to God in French (in Protestantism both in past and present, in Catholicism since the post–Vatican II reforms), German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic and many others (all of which maintain the use of an "informal" singular form of the second person in modern speech). In addition, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible attempted to maintain the distinction found in Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek between singular and plural second-person pronouns and verb forms, so they used thou, thee, thy, and thine for singular, and ye, you, your, and yours for plural.
That doesn't really explain why people used a more familiar form with God, literally the most powerful anything, than they would with mere strangers.
I won't claim this as the one true answer, but one potential reason is that it is encouraged by many religions, including Christian denominations, to have a personal relationship with God. To put it another way, it is exactly God's power which enables God to have a personal relationship with each of us while we, constrained by our own humanity, are only capable of maintaining familiarity with a relatively small number of people.
In English, some prayers came directly from the King James Bible. The singular second-person pronoun in those prayers corresponded with the informal second-person pronoun in the normal spoken or written English of that time. It would have been weird to change the "hallowed be thy name" written in the Bible to "hallowed be your name" when actually praying just to be more formal towards God. Being formal would also not reflect the teaching that Christians have been adopted as sons and daughters of God. I read that "thou" indicated familiarity and affection like between family members and friends and lovers, whereas "ye" indicated distance, and using "ye" towards someone that you'd normally call "thou" would indicate you had a problem with them. So calling God "ye" would require you to rephrase passages in the Bible and might connote that you don't think God has a friendly or familial sort of relationship with Christians, but is far removed from humans or even antagonistic towards them.
It's just a cultural tradition. Not sure what kind of answer you're expecting here.
In his prayer Jesus did not address YHWH as Adonai (“Lord”) as is customary in Judaism, but as “Papa/Dad”, Abba in Aramaic, and taught his disciples this form of address.
Christianity began as an episode of Undercover Boss, so it makes perfect sense.
I feel like the American version of intra-family respect variations is “Father” vs “Dad”.
In my family growing up, my dad’s name was “Dad” from my POV. “Father” was a strange-to-me formality that only a couple of my friends’ families use. “Hey Dad, wanna grab lunch?” is technically using a title of respect, but feels way different than “Hello, Father. Would you like to make lunch plans?”
My kids call me Dad, unless we’re greeting each other like Jerry and Newman on Seinfeld to be funny, which is something always initiated by them: “Hello, Father.” “Hello, Daughter.” kid giggles
One time I heard my kid talking to his dad and calling him “Sir”. That felt utterly foreign to me. If I called my own dad “Sir”, he’d rightfully have assumed I was being a smartass. There’s never another situation where I’d address him that way.
Or the judge who sued his condominium demanding its employees call him "doutor" (Your Honor)...
As a Brazilian raised to not care about this stuff, I would say even rebelled a bit, it was weird to basically be required to do so once I reached adulthood. I remember getting in front of a sheriff and having to address him as "doutor". I remember talking to an intern in law firms and he corrected me when I addressed him by name saying, "No, it's DOUTOR Adriano".
Gee, let's not even mention the medical field... veterinarians and nutritionists want to be called "doutor"...
I moved from Brazil to Sweden and it is hard talking to medical doctors, it is so indoctrinated into us.
me: Hi Doctor... I have X problem, Doctor. Could you give me some treatment, Doctor?
Doctor: You can just call me Ana
me: Yes Doctor Ana
Even for professionals that don't have titles if they have authority over you, you need to use the title. VERY evident when talking to police officers always say "Senhor" (sir), police have the power to really screw with you without any reason so better to show respect. You never know when you run into a police officer who enjoys screwing people over.
The Germans are also pretty ridiculous around titles, in that not only can you have multiple titles, and each are mentioned, but you can also have several copies of each. So someone can be Herr Doktor Doktor Professor.
But "Doctor" means you have an actual PhD, a doctorate. That's a worthy title, IMHO
My country has a fairly high % of PhD holders, but nowhere near enough jobs for them, so they end up getting regular jobs (e.g. I have a friend who got a PhD in laser physics, who now plays with AI models for license plate recognition).
These people usually leave the PhD off their CV, as some employers frown upon it, as they think the person will have higher expectations and be hard to work with.
Your example seems kinda funny.
Most people would think working on AI models for computer vision problems is a perfectly reasonable outcome for a STEM PhD, even if it's not a direct continuation of the thesis research.
Turning a physics PhD into any sort of modeling, statistical analysis or engineering work is pretty normal in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more physics PhDs working in finance than academia and government research labs.
> These people usually leave the PhD off their CV, as some employers frown upon it, as they think the person will have higher expectations and be hard to work with.
Most of them are hard to work with. As is with any people that climb on titles. They consider themselves special. That's why it is difficult for them to integrate in a team.
Not my personal experience. Many of whom I have worked with are quite friendly and open.
PhDs are not take just for social climbing. Many were genuinely interested in the subject until they got disillusioned..
Are PhDs ever taken for social climbing? It's absolutely wild to me that somebody would go through that for status. Doesn't generally give you much of it and costs you a ton in opportunity cost and stress (at least based on the cases I know lol).
The senior title comes first -- Prof. Dr. Dr. Honorary doctorates are "honoris causa", abbreviated h.c. If you get multiple of these, you write Dr. h.c. mult. So you occasionally find Prof Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. X (would have been the correct way to address Umberto Eco, for instance). After introductions, people generally name only the most senior title, if any.
That’s really interesting. Re medical field — by contrast surgeons in the UK are called “Mr” (Mister) or “Ms”, for historical reasons.
It can't be a coincidence that my Mexican family we were also taught to not use the formal 'usted' as it's too distant and actually has the opposite effect of making others feel disrespected. It's intentionally used when talking badly about someone similar to 'well YOU {usually bad thing but the emphasis on the formal you makes this feel more impactful}'
Funnily enough, você itself was once more formal, having been a contraction of "vossa mercê."
I'm surprised to hear that your family did not use formal language even in prayer. May I ask what religion(s) you grew up practicing? Catholic prayers often use antiquated, formal language (like "vós"). I don't know enough about Candomblé, but at least Nagô Candomblé is pretty highly formalized in the sense that Yorùbá is the liturgical language.
The "Doutor/Doutora" thing bothers me. I see it all the time with my in-laws empregadas, who use it to refer to my father-in-law (who's an MD) and my mother-in-law (who isn't). It feels weirdly obsequious in that context, even though there's a very clear power and class hierarchy.
> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.)
I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name.
Being "on a first name basis" still has meaning for me -- or it would, if it had for anyone else, which clearly is absolutely not the case anymore.
Interesting, as a German (which also has a similar system), I am the complete opposite, I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name. And the worst part is having to figure out how to address others, especially people you've known for a while but aren't really close to, e.g. say long-time neighbors I rarely meet.
Luckily, in the IT industry, it's common to just use first names with everybody.
Yes. I find addressing people by surname uniquely stupid. Like are you calling the person or the historical clan? It perhaps made sense for medieval lords to address their underlings as if they were interchangeable, in our modern context that has largely done away with royalty, using surnames makes no sense.
It becomes even more interesting when traditionally cultures (like mine) don't use surnames, but modern IT systems stemming from the Anglo Saxon culture force people to arbitrarily assign one of their names as a surname or IT systems generally don't work.
I have a very common first name (Dave) and a very uncommon last name (Pifke, pronounced PIF-key). The majority of my close friends call me by my last name, since there are several other Daves and Davids in our friend group.
My brother's friends do likewise, since his first name is Mike and he runs with a bunch of other Mikes and Michaels.
There's a naming collision when my brother and I hang out together, but since we live in different states, the system usually works.
Similar here. My last name is pretty unusual, but my first name is common, so I generally go by my last name with friends and colleagues. Oddly, I've gotten so used to this that it feels a little bit more formal when someone addresses me by my first name.
To make matters even more complicated, when I do use my first name, I almost always use an abbreviation. The only people that use my full first name are my parents, sister, and (occasionally) my wife, and it's really off-putting to hear it otherwise.
Names are interesting and weird.
Same. I work with a girl with first name Emily last name rhymes with “Wacky”. The latter is so much for fun to say and avoids collisions.
I think American high school kids often refer to and address one another by surname. It was the case when at my son's high school, as I recall at my own, and I think at my wife's. It might have been the case at my father's, and perhaps my wife's parents--I'd have to look at the yearbooks.
My experience is this mostly between men and generally not as common as it used to be.
My dad is called by his surname by some of his high school pals and call some of them by surname when he's around them (but not in reference to them if he's talking to me). Thinking back to my high school days in the late 00's I can only remember athletes being called by their last name. Perhaps because of football or sports that you just have your last name on your jersey. It would be an interesting thing to understand more.
I could be regional too. I'm from the US in the midwest.
This is what we used to do, because in one friend group there would be 3 mikes and 2 steves. At some point, you have to use nicknames or last names.
Nicknames include variations like Mikey, Mickey, Mikail, Big Michael, Little Michael, Gas Station Michael, Angry Michael, Tony (obligatory wrong name your group uses because there were already too many Michaels and this Michael liked his middle name)
and Mike.
a lot of the time its just a nickname. public schools in the US are huge and then when it comes to sports the athletes are visiting other schools. before i knew it id meet 12 new Jakes every year so everyone goes by nicknames or last name
theres an occasional phenomenon in the US, often referenced in sitcoms, where an individuals entire first and last name sticks as their "nickname"
In my high school (Massachusetts, USA), almost all the students went by their last names, or something related to their last names. Ashley Milford was Milf, Samantha St. Paul was Saint Paul, Ryan Leonard was Lenny, Kevin Doo was Kevin Doo, for example. I'm still my surname in my head.
I learned later that we had a reputation for being a jock school though, because we all had to play a sport each semester.
There's also the "when you say Mr. lastname, I turn around and look for my father" type of responses when using someone's last name.
Addressing each other by surname is something that occurs principally in the context of sports, but outside of that you'd just address someone by given name. That was the case as regards children addressing each other or teachers addressing students. Students addressing teachers, of course, would address them by Mr/Mrs/Ms. <surname>. There are some oddball cases where teachers insist their students address them by given name, though.
Also, you made me feel old.
It is also used when there's name collision
If there's five people named John in the same class in school or the same team at work, it is not uncommon for all John to go by last name.
In my circle usually people would either go by their middle name or they'd very quickly earn themselves a nickname... although now that I think about it we did use lastnames for some guys. Whatever works, really. Nobody was a stickler about how they were addressed.
The surname thing was extremely common even outside of sports at my high school.
This was absolutely not the norm I experienced in the 2000s.
I did in that timeframe. To be clear, it's not "Mr Surname" but just plain "Surname". I have a lot of friends like that, "Boughter", "Mooney", etc. Not everyone, but particularly if the first name was a common one or they played sports.
I'm actually surprised you're not familiar with the practice. Think Scully from X-Files or Stifler from American Pie.
Not just Scully, but essentially everybody from every doctor or police procedural goes by their last name. The shows aren't called Meredith's Anatomy, Gregory, Adrian, or Theo.
>Stifler from American Pie
I always assumed it was his first name, thanks for expanding my understanding just a little!
I experienced this at an boy's prep high school in the late 90s. It really was alienating to have friends I'd known since kindergarten start to refer to me by my last name out of sheer conformity.
It’s mostly a thing among kids heavily into sports, in my experience.
I suspect the equivalent for 90s/00s nerdy types is e-mail addresses.
I am still "squirrel" to some college friends. And think of many of my college friends and co-workers as their username.
Nor I in the 2010's/2020's; I have to assume GP is either significantly older than us, or from a community with a strong cultural bubble that may be clouding their judgement.
The fact that different cultures evolved such systems independently proves that the general idea does make sense. Case in point: you go to an American company, the CEO says "call me simply John, feel free to chat up whenever you feel like it, we're all family here" and then you go talk to him about sex life problems of your marriage and he just stares at you awkwardly. Having explicit layers of social "closeness" makes things much easier to manage. "We address each other using last names, therefore I won't tell him about sex life of my marriage".
In your example the American CEO said you are family.
Do you frequently tell you mom, dad, brothers, children and in laws about your sex life?
Of course not. Whatever problem the American in this hypothetical is having, name conventions are not likely to help.
This wasn't just "sex life", it was "sex life problems of your marriage". And yes, there's a good chance I'd go to family and close friends if I was having intimacy problems with my spouse (with the approval of my spouse, of course!), assuming I have a close personal relationship with those people.
It's weird to me so many people in America feel they can't talk to anyone but strangers on their internet or paid specialists about their sexual issues. Sex is generally a pretty normal part of life, especially between two married people, and yet everyone feels they can't talk about it at all. It's an unhealthy mindset IMO.
is it particularly american to avoid bothering others with my own problems of any kind?
i live in the pnw which is somewhat infamous for its "mind your own business" culture. we have a transplant friend from the midwest who seem less shameful in asking for what amounts to free labor and i wonder if its a regional cultural thing within the US.
if forced by auditors to bother others with my problems, intimacy issues would be near the end of the list.
if this is american, which cultures encourage bothering others with personal problems?
I'm mostly agreeing with anal_reactor, that for most people there are hierarchies of closeness one will probably have with other people. I'm not talking about chatting up intimacy issues with any random neighbor or business contact, I'm talking about close friends and relatives.
Once again, not just out of the blue calling up that cousin you haven't spoken to in a decade and start unloading on them about your emotional issues of the day, but people in your life that truly know the day to day you. And I'm also not saying we should all invite our friends over for some barbecue and then just start sharing every detail of our sex lives. But if we are having problems in the intimate parts of our lives, we should have some people who we can talk to about it. People who understand your deep values, people who understand your goals in life, people who really get you and love you.
I think more people should probably have more deep connections with others. Everyone sees it as "bother others with my problems" and then we wonder why we have such a mental health crisis in this country and have a loneliness epidemic. Almost as if these things are related...nah! Seriously, is there absolutely nobody in your life who you think wouldn't find it a bother to listen to whatever is emotionally unsettling you? That the only way for anyone to help you with a problem would be to pay them? This would seem incredibly distressing to me, to feel like I have no real close community at all.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have paid professionals for mental health resources as well. They absolutely have a place, and I think a lot of Americans don't utilize these services enough for a multitude of reasons. But in the same way you don't go to the ER for a minor cut you shouldn't have to rely on paid therapists for your day to day emotional issues.
As for asking about free labor, once again it really depends on the context of the request and the relationship I have with the person. Once again, hierarchies of relationships. I've absolutely asked friends and neighbors to help work on a project around the house, and I've absolutely been one of those people asked to help and been there. I wouldn't think anything of the ask, and I wouldn't think anything of someone saying no to me asking. It would definitely depend on the context though. A random stranger knocking on my door asking me to redo their whole home's plumbing? Probably not! A neighbor I've talked to a few times asking for a spare set of hands for a minute as they hang something outside? If I have a minute, sure thing, I'll be right there. A close friend needing a hand pulling some ethernet cable throughout their home or work on refinishing their billiard table or painting a room? I'll grab some beers and be there in an hour.
My home is the first house in the neighborhood, so I tend to get a number of people who have minor car trouble break down stop in front. I go out there with a tool bag and a sealed bottle of water ready to help every time I see someone out there. But oh no, what a nut, offering all that free labor to absolute strangers.
> bothering others with personal problems
Ultimately my point is people should have other people in their lives where talking about intimate details and issues in their lives shouldn't be seen as a bother, but as something they would want to help with. And that I think it's a symptom of our society being sick that so many people think helping others, even supposedly close friends and family, with their issues is being bothered.
> Do you frequently tell you mom, dad, brothers, children and in laws about your sex life?
Yes.
Do you find they look at you the same way your CEO did? If not, you apparently have unusually "special" relationships.
Sometimes. Those who don't usually also enjoy hearing me in a much more relaxed tone, whereas those who do end up perceiving me through the lens of much more official language. I still fail to see what's so absurd about this.
Do you... literally talk to your boss the same way you talk to your best friend?
This is a very confusing discussion.
If you live in a Robert Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land-esque sex positive utopia where you're constantly going around talking about sex to everyone and getting positive reception, talk about it with your CEO as well, I guess?
I don't talk to my work relationship only CEO about anything sexual. That's just common sense, and is built into our social mores, no need for some hokey Mr. Blahblah unless he wants to be called that explicitly, and I'm fine with that.
Interesting choice of username, given this comment ;-)
If you address him as anything more than Mr Reactor you'll learn all about what he gets up to...
>I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name.
Me too. There are still German companies where coworkers address others with Herr or Frau followed by their last name.
I find it also interesting how people that learn German understand the difference between the "you" in formal ("sie") and informal ("du") version, but often don't understand in which context du use them. In most cases you can use the informal "du" nowadays, especially when you are out with somebody for a beer.
After elementary school we had this interesting shift form addressing the other children with first name to addressing them with last name. We were circa 11 years old.
It's a generational thing. There has definitely been a change in recent years, especially the younger generation can no longer do much with the formal “Sie”, but of course they know it. I am 46 years old and have grown up with and been familiar with the “Du/Sie” dichotomy from the very beginning. It also has many advantages and offers clear relationships: There is no ambiguity as to which pronouns I use to address someone, older people and superiors always use “Sie”. With younger people/peers of the same age, you can quickly agree on a “Du”. These days, it's unclear to me who I can address as “Du”. I'm a friend of clarifying this before starting, but it's always a meta conversation, which can hinder the flow of conversation. Besides, it's a kind of badge of honor and a sign of trust when you're offered a “Du”. When I address anyone of our management team as “Du” these days, it irritates me - I'm not “best friends” with them, nor do I feel closer or more connected. For me, the distinction is/was never an expression of whether you are on an equal footing or not.
Interesting how you write "Du" and not "du". I'm French and I've been living in Germany for 20 years. I understand and use "du/Sie" more or less appropriately (we have the same dichotomy in French). What I still cannot wrap my head around after all this time is why/when some people use "du/Du", "dein/Dein", "dich/Dich" in writing (to be clear: not at the beginning of a sentence). I guess "Du" is somewhere inbetween "du" und "Sie" on the politeness scala but I never dared to ask. I'm only using lowercase "du". What would be a rule of thumb on how/when to use the uppercase "Du"?
"Du" and "du" are generally 100% equivalent. Regular casing-rules apply, e.g. in the beginning of a sentence it's "Du" but inside it's "du". "Kannst du mir helfen?". "Du kannst dir doch selbst helfen!"
Sometimes it's written "Du" even if in the middle of the sentence when addressing someone directly. It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.
The same can happen with other words that are getting capitalized for similar reasons, but when going strictly by the book it's grammatically incorrect. An example would be "das Große Ganze" where it should be "große" but it is capitalized to emphasize the connection/phrase.
>It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.
That's wrong, it's not technically incorrect. In fact before 2006 the only correct way to address someone personally in written form was to capitalize the Du / Sie / Ihr. Since then you are allowed to write it either way. I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.
Fair enough.
> Since then you are allowed to write it either way
Okay, my interpretation is that it doesn't really make sense within the language rules, so they changed it but allowed to use the old style to make the transition easier. ;-)
> I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.
Impossible to keep up with all the Rechtschreibreformen anyways.
Thank you and nosebear for the clarification! Now I understand better why some of my colleagues (like my boss, older) use "Du" and some don't. I'll stick to not using it, there are enough grammatic pitfalls elsewhere in the German language (not that French is any easier for foreigners, I'm sure).