In Spanish the "thou" word ("tú") never died out, though I'm told in Argentina calling everyone "vos" is a regional thing But in the 17th century the Spanish aristocracy started going even further and being *ultra*-polite
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
Habitually addressing your social betters in the *third* person, by a title Not just "vosotros" or "vos" but "Vuestra Merced", "Your Mercy"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
There were multiple titles, like "Your Grace", "Your Highness", etc but "Your Mercy" was the all-purpose one And "Your Mercy" became so commonly used that it got slurred and shortened from "Vuestra Merced" to "vuestraced" to "vuestred" to just "usted"
1 reply 3 retweets 37 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
This is why the grammatical quirk that when fully spelled out "usted" is lowercase but abbreviated as "Ud." it's capitalized, it's technically a proper noun
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
And see, while in Spain "tú" (informal 2nd person singular), "usted" (formal 2nd person singular), "vosotros" (informal 2nd person plural) and "ustedes" (formal 2nd person plural) all coexist, in Latin America they were so ultra-polite "usted" completely replaced "vosotros"
1 reply 3 retweets 29 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
The ONLY WAY to speak to someone politely in Mexico is to call them "Your Grace", the actual word "you" has become archaic and obsolete And while some would just call this a quirk of language, it is obviously related to 17th century Spain being a massive colonial slave empire
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
People in the colonies spoke much more formally and ultra-politely than in Spain because they had to It's creepy when you think about what "usted" literally means, "Your Mercy" You're begging "Hey random dude please don't call the cops on me" with every sentence
2 replies 2 retweets 47 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
Obviously to most modern Spanish speakers this is just natural and you don't really "hear" it anymore any more than we think "Hey you!" is a "polite" thing to say to someone But the markers of the past are always still there in language
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
The usted form is literally talking to someone like you're a waiter in a fancy restaurant, it's technically in the grammatical third person "I would like to welcome Sir and ask Sir if he finds everything to his liking. Shall I take his order or is he still deciding?"
3 replies 2 retweets 32 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
I had someone on a thread the last time this came up talking about how Spaniards like to make fun of Mexican Spanish for coming off as "formal" and "servile" without any introspection as to who beat that into them over the course of centuries
2 replies 9 retweets 65 likes
All these formal servant idioms that are now part of everyday language - "con su permiso" ("with sir's permission", ie "excuse me"), "a su servicio" ("at sir's service", ie "yeah that's me" on the phone)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
English speakers don't seem to realize that the expression "Mi casa es su casa" is originally a servile expression, not a friendly one It's in the formal register, not informal ("Mi casa es tu casa") "My home is sir's home"
1 reply 5 retweets 37 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
Anyway I pointed out this isn't THAT different from, say, the US South, where you habitually called everyone "Sir" and "Ma'am" at all times because that too started as a highly stratified slave society where you could end up in deep shit for mildly disrespecting the wrong person
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