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"
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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
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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?"
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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
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
All of this checks out except for the conclusion. Spaniard racists mostly make fun of non-Spanish accents. It's not about being polite, it's about sounding different. And "usted" as a default is also present in some places in Spain proper.
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The word used for "you" in Spanish is very regional. Sometimes it changes in the singular and plural, there are three or four different words. And the reason it's what it is, which you described correctly, also applies to other latin languages like French and Portuguese.
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But I guarantee you nobody sounds "formal" or "servile" to any other Spanish speaker. Spanish speakers have tons of stereotypes for what other accents or language varieties sound like, but that's not one that I know of.
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Well, it's not my take but one of my followers, who is Mexican, so idk
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Replying to @arthur_affect @revivingfisking
I dunno. Maybe some Spaniard friend told them at one point, but it's certainly not a generalized thing. Of course, it'll depend on who it is, also. Each Spanish-speaking country has their own regional accents, class markers and so on.
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Oh, and one more factual mistake in the thread. "Vuestra merced" was very much not about the aristocracy. In fact, it was the polite form to address commoners.
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