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From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Re: i hate being called "Tanaka-san" by a (racist) white American.
Message-ID: <E68FHJ.KyD@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <5evrbi$t7j$1@mark.ucdavis.edu> <5f096b$hai@idiom.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 22:51:19 GMT
Lines: 22
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.japan:40337 sci.lang:70957

ocremel@idiom.com (Olivier Cremel) writes:

>I don't know about that. However I work for a Fujitsu subsidiary in
>California where a good number of Japanese people are working too.
>Use of -san is omnipresent. It doesn't seem to imply any kind of
>derision. I cannot bring myself to use it though.  It seems contrived
>in English. I'm French and nobody calls me Monsieur, after all.

I agree that in conversation that would seem rather forced to me.
However, _in formal situations_ it has long been considered courteous
in English to give foreigners their native titles, such as Monsieur,
Herr, Madame.  Accordingly, I hope you would not take offense if I
referred to you as M. Cremel in toasting you at a banquet or replying
to you in the columns of a learned publication.  I gather from some
other postings in this thread that it would be rash to indulge in any
such hope with respect to Tanaka-san.

---  Joe Fineman    jcf@world.std.com

||:  When there's no news in the truth, there's no truth in the  :||
||:  news.                                                       :||

