Not Sweating the Small Stuff

'Hi' and 'Hey' - Intensifying Intimacy

'Tu', 'Vous' and the Bread Lady

I miscalculatedly 'Hey-ed' someone in the blogosphere the other day - and was savagely 'Dear-ed' back!

And I began to think about the issue.

Along with everyone else in the Anglophile universe, I invariably used to start letters and emails with the conventional 'Dear' greeting. For everyone - business and personal ... whatever. Life was easy!

Because of SMS-ing, chatroom chatting and blog posting, I realize that I've quite unconsciously added 'Hello', 'Hi' and 'Hey' to my repertoire of written greetings. With 'Hello' the most formal and 'Hi' the least? BTW, does 'Hello' sound totally deranged everywhere?!

Anyway, it felt great now being able to manage levels of intimacy. As I do in French with 'tu' ('you' for intimate friends) and 'vous' ('you' for everyone else). (Big 'tu' kiss to Ulysse!)

Then I recalled I'd not been traumatized by my 'intimacy error' in English.

As I might have been in French, which is viewed by Francophones as the not-to-be corrupted 'national treasure'.

I remember a French blog where a guy had posted he'd been talking to his 'bread lady' and things had moved from transactional to personal. And the woman asked "Tu t'ennuies pas trop?" ("Aren't you bored?") referring to his move to the countryside. The guy was flabbergast, replying "Est-ce qu'on se dit tu ou est-ce qu'on se dit vous ?" ("Do we say 'tu' or 'vous' to each other?"). Provoking the response "Je m'en fous" ("I don't give a fuck") - followed by them both laughing uproariously! Awful interpersonal tension being released.

In fact the same distinction used to be made in English - with 'thou' as the singular form ...

'Thou' and 'You' in Shakespeare

... and 'you' the plural form, for the second person nominative.

With 'thou' becoming an intimate form of 'you', up to the end of the Edwardian era.

It remains now in the language only in set expressions such as 'Holier than thou'. With curiously a new plural form appearing here recently in certain sociolects - "Are yous coming tonight?".

But back to 'hey' and 'hi'.

I just love being able to intensify intimacy with 'hey' - and it's become really natural to me now, having seemed a bit awkward and calculated at first.

Thank god for language change and evolution, hey!