vousvoyer
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: vousvoyers
form: vousvoyering
form: vousvoyered
form: vousvoyered
form: vouvoyer
Senses: examples: text: The much thornier problem of whether to vousvoyer or tutoyer Ahmadou solved itself. At first I sought refuge in the impersonal on ("Can one have a glass of water, please?" instead of "Please bring me a glass of water.") But Ahmadou was soon tutoyer-ing me as often as vousvoyer-ing me, although he continued to use the formal "Monsieur," so I came to use the familiar form in addressing him.
ref: 1966, Developing World: AUFS Readings, American Universities Field Staff, Inc., →LCCN, page 110:
text: It was typical that once I learned to speak French, I could tutoyer both men, though they formally “vousvoyered” each other.
ref: 1987, Jeremy Bernstein, The Life It Brings: One Physicist’s Beginnings, Ticknor & Fields, →ISBN, page 151:
text: It irritated her that since the bedroom incident he presumed to tutoyer her. She always took care to vousvoyer him back. With icy politeness.
ref: 1988, Patrick Alexander, Ryfka, Arrow Books, Century Hutchinson Limited, published 1989, →ISBN, page 214:
text: As for vousvoyer'''ing the help, Mahouna has tutoyéed me from the beginning.
ref: 1991, Susan Louise Blake, Letters from Togo, University of Iowa Press, page 24:
text: After using the familiar form "tu" you can’t go back to vousvoyering.
ref: 1995 November 30, Charles Stuart Kennedy, quotee, Anne O. Cary, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, published 2015, page 46:
text: Everybody present, including me, thought it would be silly to vousvoyer somebody in bed;[…]I've never needed to address someone in a communal shower, but I'd bet hard money that you'd vousvoyer.[…]One tutoyers aquaintances,^([sic]) unless there is a reason not to, and one vousvoyers strangers.[…]I know who I ought to be vousvoyering and who I ought to be tutoyering, usually, although I occasionally slip up anyway.[…]I started into a sentence like that, using "vous", and my colleague absently corrected me to "tu", and then said hastily "but you can vousvoyer me if you want..." (I think he was considering the possibility I was vousvoyering him on purpose because I was mad at him, which I wasn't).[…]François Mitterand^([sic]) is said to have vousvoyered his dog
ref: 1997 February 28, Elizabeth D. Zwicky, “NO CARRIER”, in soc.motss (Usenet):
text: Is his vousvoyering of the lady supposed to be, like, ironic?
ref: 1998 March 1, Lee Rudolph, “Cold shoulder?”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet):
text: The texts say to vousvoyer (use impersonal) most of the time.
ref: 2003 July 22, Marcel Beaudoin, “OT: air conditioning, or lack”, in rec.pets.dogs.behavior (Usenet):
text: {note that it is the custom in francophone newsgroups to vousvoyer; I will have none of it. In italophone newsgroups, si da del tu.}
ref: 2004 June 4, Alan Lothian, “Aides-moi, Christophe”, in sci.military.naval (Usenet):
text: One’s youngers, intimates, domestic pets and God are “tu”, though we are reliably informed that Mme Chirac vousvoyered her husband even before he reached the Elysée.
ref: 2006 July 4, “Are you talking to moi?”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 46,989, page 17:
text: “I’m Will. I do English. What about you?” “French.”[…]“[…] Refreshers, they’re supposed to be, vousvoyering. […]”
ref: 2014, Charles Finch, The Last Enchantments, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 41:
glosses: Synonym of vouvoy.
synonyms: word: vouvoy