[Contentless] ITT you post right now [ASAP] your current thought [Brains][Thinking][Personal][#30] (999)

201 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-9123 04:19

>>200
My interpretation was just that speaking in a second language provides you with an emotional buffer. Just as curse words don't feel offensive in a second language, using 'vous' would feel neither too intimate nor too distant for non-native speakers.

But you made me curious so I did some googling, and found this: http://languagehat.com/ty-and-vy-then-and-now/

According to the comments, the French word "vous" was considered neutral among the Russian aristocracy at the time.

If anything I would guess that rather than satire, Tolstoy was just writing realistically.

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