You/thee

Hi everybody!

Today I would love to talk about the use between you and thee, but I will just consider the Italian, Spanish and Norwegian use of them because these are the countries where I have more experience from:

In Italy it is very formal and still in use the form thee or lei (as we say) and we use it especially with people we don’t know, authorities or high-level professions (such as lawyers, professors, etc.), meantime and for the rest of the other categories of people we usually use the you form (friends, family and acquaintances). Considering these two forms of reaching out to people, we can immediately notice some sort of distance between the two ways we choose to use. For example if I talk to a lawyer using lei form, we emphasize (in a way) a distance between importance of whichever role both have and the type of contact/formality we put in evidence and being far under a humanitarian point of view. This is my point of view after eight years in Norway. Was I clear enough?

In Spain it’s the same thing, even if thee in Spanish is usted but I had the possibility to use you with for example my professors at the University of Seville, where I felt at home, welcomed. Maybe here we can notice a less distance between the parts which are having a conversation and there is a more fraternal point of view? (My opinion after seven years in Spain). As I said in my personal experience it was ok to use that form. But there are still some professors of the old mold who want to hear usted.

In Norway you /du is always used no matter who you are. Thee/de is a very old form which they don’t use anymore. Do you know what? I love it! Why? Because we are all the same and we need humanity. Sometimes it is more important the way you act and the choice of good and appropriate words to show respect, while speaking with someone you don’t know whether using thee. With words you can always keep a distance, also helped by the context and the tone or expression you use saying something.

What do you think about it?

I would love to read your opinions.

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You have to read this!

Hello everyone!

Still in lockdown? We still are here in Norway 😦 … There are a lot of things we can do while we are at home… but the one thing I definitely adore is to read a nice book… do you agree?

Lately I have been reading books about the philosophy of life which makes you see things in a more rational and positive point of view…and let me tell you it helps a lot, especially in this dark period. But the book I would like to talk to you about is something completely different and it tells the story of a woman, with three children and of all the responsibilities she has to deal with for her family. Throughout the story, which is written in the form of a diary, we are witnesses of her attempt to have or create a moment of intimacy with her husband… but in vain. It is a realistic book told through funny expressions, thoughts and words and what I liked most is her spontaneity to tell the events and her way to show her real identity through her thoughts, which are the essence of this story. Her name is Paz and the title of the book is “Mama’ en busca del polvo perdido” (English: Mommy in search of the lost sex) by Jessica Gomez. It is in Spanish, as you see 🙂

Why did I read this book? I also would like to share with you that I am part of a group of Spanish women who believe and fight for our rights where we can speak freely about all sorts of things that revolve around our sexuality or other intimate phases of our life. Well, sometimes the leaders of the groups “Sex community” & “Mis 4 lunas” (My 4 moons), suggest that we do some “homework” such as reading this book.

So here I will report a paragraph to let you have an idea of the book with its translation in English, so you can think of buying it and reading it 😉

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MONDAY,

January 13th.

You ask when did everything start? I wouldn’t know when.

Well, doing a quick review of my memory, going back on the movie of my life, I would take the first break in the moment that, seated on the kitchen table a couple of years ago, I got shocked when I saw the positive pregnancy test of my third child. Or rewinding a bit more, I would stop in the other moment, seven years before when I got paralyzed and speechless for more than half an hour while I was looking at the positive pregnancy test of my middle daughter. That time I was seated on the couch. If I turn back a little more, I can stop the movie in the moment when my oldest son was born, ten years ago, and I see myself there: exhausted but smiling with a little baby in my arms. And a bit before the happiness of a positive pregnancy test, and a bit earlier the moment when Didier and I decided to be parents.

And now that we are at this point, I could go back till the day when we went to live together, to the day when we met each other, to the first time that I got the period or to the exact moment inside of the uterus of my mother where my double X decided to give me functional ovaries.

But let’s not try to look for the guilty.

You ask when did everything start? I suppose that, by virtue of being practical- my mom, that woman able to put lacquer on that carded hair for half an hour, already told me that: ” Daughter, you must be practical”-, I could say that the hecatomb was unleashed eleven days ago. And the thing happened as follows.

It was the 2nd of January. It was a fateful Thursday. Well, in honor of the truth it was a normal Thursday, but I have always wanted to begin a story saying that it was a fateful day because it looks very professional. As I was saying, it was Thursday, the 2nd, and I still had the remains of the New Year’s Eve dinner rolling around the living room table. They were consistent especially in grape seeds that did not stop appearing glued everywhere and pieces of nougat well sucked by someone- nobody knew by whom-; with the feeling of sadness to throw it away but it sucked to eat it and your strategy was to leave them there till the dog could eat them “accidentally” or, in their case, they had their own life and you can throw them away without any remorse.

(…)

Is it nice? I hope you will have the chance to read it in Spanish, who speaks it and maybe in English in a future…

Here I leave the links to buy it if you are interested:

mamá En Busca Del Polvo perdido: Amazon.es: Gómez, Jessica: Libros

Also you can search for Ana Galvez Rodriguez and Laura Solas Fernandez on Facebook and Instagram 🙂 if you want to learn more about the interesting female world 🙂

Ana Gálvez Rodríguez | Facebook

Laura Solas Fernandez | Facebook

Enjoy your reading whichever book you choose, because reading is culture and knowledge.

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