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  #51  
Old 08-17-2012, 01:39 PM
John W. Kennedy John W. Kennedy is online now
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The English lack of thou can be a translator’s nightmare. Sometimes the change from you to thou (or the reverse) can be a significant moment in a character’s journey (it seems to turn up often in Ibsen), and translators are forced to fall back on great thumping substitutes like, “Oh, do call me ‘Suzie’, darling!”
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  #52  
Old 08-17-2012, 03:38 PM
Irishman Irishman is online now
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I take it that would be in place of a line something like, "Oh, you can call me 'Suzie', darling!", i.e. he called her Miss whatever, and she is personalizing it.

Funny, they talk in that article about the singular use of Y'all in Oklahoma, but I never encountered it in Oklahoma. I have in Houston, but the situations are typically a customer service rep (like restaurant hostess), so it's conceivable they're falling into rote language patterns and not realizing it.
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