Tutoiement Partout
- 05.26.2007 - 10:34 AMTu or vous? Du or Sie? In English, the second person singular has long since ceased to be a source of political controversy—though in the days when Quakers insisted on calling their social superiors “Thee” and “Thou,” it mattered very much. In French and German, it still matters.
Newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised eyebrows in Berlin last week on his first official visit by presuming to tutoie Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor: “Chère Angela . . . J’ai confiance en toi.” (Dear Angela . . . I have confidence in you.) Frau Merkel, who addressed him as “Lieber Nicolas” (Dear Nicolas), responded with the formal Sie, at least in public. The French press noted the disparity and gently mocked Mr. Sarkozy—though not nearly as harshly as they did Tony Blair. Blair once dared to tutoie Jacques Chirac, who liked to stand on his dignity as a head of state, deserving deference from mere heads of government. The British prime minister was firmly put in his place. What sounded to British ears like Mr. Chirac’s pomposity was, however, approved of by the French. His Socialist predecessor François Mitterrand was once asked if he would mind if he were addressed as tu: “Si vous voulez” was his reply.
But the proper use of tu and vous is complex. After the French Revolution, the distinction was abolished in the interests of egalité et fraternité. In 1793, the Directory even banned vous altogether. It did not take long, however, for the formal mode of address to make a comeback. In the sixth edition of the great dictionary of the Académie Française, published in 1835, the article on tu is quite explicit: “One does not normally use these pronouns . . . except when speaking to very inferior persons, or to those with whom one is on terms of very great familiarity.” The lexicographer notes various exceptions, including the poetic use of tu when addressing kings, princes, and even God. Foreigners, “particularly Orientals,” were sometimes made to use tu in literary texts “in order to preserve their alien character.” In all other contexts, vous is mandatory.
Now Mr. Sarkozy has decreed that French schools must insist on students saying vous to their teachers. Les profs are strongly advised to pay their older pupils the same compliment. This order represents a minor cultural counter-revolution, in line with the new president’s promise to “liquidate the legacy of May 1968, with its abandonment of moral codes.” But according to an excellent report by Charles Bremner in the London Times, the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro sees the “rampant tutoiement” as “spreading from the business world imitating the Anglo-Saxons and now invading private life.”
This is a bit rich: how often do you hear Americans or Britons say “thee” or “thou” to one another—unless they are performing Shakespeare? The truth is that the informal second person singular in English went out with the Victorians, except in poetry (and was considered old-fashioned even then). Blame for the triumph of tutoiement simply cannot be assigned to the Anglosphere. But you can’t keep the French from blaming everything they don’t like about themselves on “les Anglo-Saxons.”
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May 26th, 2007 at 4:02 PM
The Anglo-Saxon “you” may be reasonably respectful as well as egalitarian, but many Americans now call total strangers by their first names (or even nicknames) whether invited to do so or not. On the other hand, some people from the South still call eachother “sir” or “m’am”. First-name-ism seems as intrusive as a gratuitously familiar form of “you” and surely more so than the Jacobin “Citizen” or Communist “Comrade” (unless, of course, the “Citizen” or “Comrade” happened to be an aristocrat, in which case he or she was due for more than a social demotion). Has first-name-ism spread to either England or France? Also, here in the Southwest US an awful lot of people just settle for “bro.” But I’ve yet to hear a woman called “Sis.”
May 26th, 2007 at 9:41 PM
One shd not forget Spain, where for most of the 20th c. the use of the 2p fam. in public circumstances was the unmistakable mark of the red; we can only imagine its dominance now under the flourishing ideology of the cobbler. For Mr. Halpern: “awful” is absolutely the right adjective.
May 27th, 2007 at 7:42 AM
This question comes up in Spanish as well. In recent decades the use of the familiar “tu” has greatly increased and the more formal “usted” seems to have lagged in usage. I recall, back in the ’70’s, when Felipe Gonzalez, then leader of the Spanish opposition, had his first meeting with King Juan Carlos. Gonzalez was struck (and a bit surprised) by the fact that the King immediately began referring to him as “tu” rather than “usted.” Even in historically class-conscious Spain, the lines between the familiar and the formal in personal address certainly have blurred in many cases.
May 27th, 2007 at 12:16 PM
I’m sure that the distinction tu/vous will survive as singular vs. plural, just as thee/you has survived as you/you’all (youse, youse guys, you’uns). Honorifics will survive, too, as Mr. Halpern points out–perhaps not as pronouns, but other forms of address like Hey you vs. Sir etc.
The loss of Mr./Miss/Ms/Mrs. in addressing students in the classroom was supposed to be a manifestation of friendliness, but what it often led to was inequality, as students kept on using honorifics like Prof./Dr./Mr. etc. in addressing teachers, while teachers used first names. I never gave up the old-fashioned way; one student once thanked me, saying it was nice to be addressed differently from kindergarten days.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:48 PM
The Quaker insistence on using the familiar to their social superiors didn’t matter very much, as the use of the familiar was already beginning to be regarded as unfashionable in English when they began to use it. It didn’t seem radical, but simply queer (in the old sense of the word). Ironically, the English familiar - because of its use in poetry, in the Authorized Version, and by the Quakers - has a more formal taste to the Anglophone ear than does the second person, y’all.
June 4th, 2007 at 6:51 PM
I am curious about thuis business of the formal vs. informal second person pronouns; specifically, why is the formal form also the plural form (at least in French and German). Why do I address a familiar person or an inferior with the singular and the stranger or superior with the plural? In the latter case, am I addressing “you and somebody else” possibly “you and God?” Anybody have any ideas about that?
July 16th, 2007 at 8:50 PM
Can anyone tell me how to get back to this discussion? I can summon up this page, but seem to have lost the thread to get in on recent discussion. Please e-mail me, KRPCarroll@AOL.com