Comments on: Honorifics

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:39:46 +0000

Evidently, the letter was addressed to an unknown (duh!) member of the Honorable Society… :->

Here’s a really extreme example of honorific language that I discussed some time ago.

Oh yeah, France, where you can still get letters that end in “Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, à l’expression de mes sentiments distingués”. The formulas are getting more diverse and shorter, sometimes all the way to the suspiciously English-looking “Sincèrement”, but even “[...] les plus distingués” was sighted in the wild not long ago.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:49:29 +0000

Here's a really extreme example of honorific language that I discussed some time ago.

By: jangari

jangari — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:09:58 +0000

Hope, according to TB, there are responsible people in the department, and there are a couple of honorable people in the department, but the department lacks anyone who is both honorable and responsible.

Perhaps the fact that I opened it says more about my modesty than anything else.

By: Hope

Hope — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:06:08 +0000

Is everyone else in the lx dept p.o’d because he/she isn’t ‘the honorable reponsible person’?

By: jangari

jangari — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:13:00 +0000

Alejna, you’re so cool. I did in fact remove it from the rubbish bin (it wasn’t even put in the recycling!) and, believing myself to be sufficiently honorable and responsible, I did open it. I found that it was a serious correspondence that should have been directed to someone in particular – that is, the sender didn’t know who should have received it, but anyone who opened it would have deduced the right person for it to go to.

So, being said horonable and responsible person, I put the contents in their pigeon hole… and scanned the envelope.

By: alejna

alejna — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:41:25 +0000

That is odd that you found it in the trash. It does make one question the honor and responsibility of the person who threw it out…You’d think they’d be at least curious enough to open it and see if it should be directed to someone specific (whether or not that person had the desired attributes).

So, my question is, as an honorable and responsible person (as I believe you to be), did you open the letter? Because you could certainly make an argument for it being addressed to you as much as to anyone else in the department.