Honorific Puns

I work at a restaurant, and I like to call people "boss". I generally avoid calling women "boss", not because women cannot be boss, but because I feel as though most women (trans or otherwise) wouldn't like to be called that... Am I wrong? What about for non binary people? I am thinking of switching to "my friend". I just think it is a shame to loose "boss" as it is just awesome to get called "boss" sometimes. What do you guys think?

Is it because tite kubo don't want to make ichigo the typical anime hero of royal blood to reader and other character in the manga.

Kishimoto make naruto regconize as the hero of hidden leaf also the hero of the fourth great ninja war.

Oda give luffy a hero title who safe a country after he beat dofflamigo and i think he will do the same in wano arc.

As far as I know it's just called honorific or something like that in english and I get what it's use and purpose is but what is it called in Korean? I'd also appreciate if someone could give an overview over the Korean names for the usual speech level endings.

Thanks in advance :)

I'm hoping to get results specific to the medieval period, ideally the Sassanid period, but any input is helpful!

Does your conlang have any forms of politesse (etiquette, courtesy, or honorifics)? What is considered 'rude' in your conlang? How do people modulate or determine what is appropriate?

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Athama has a somewhat robust system of honorific pronouns, as it is considered rude to address someone by name. I'll reproduce the table from my grammar here.

https://preview.redd.it/l5dnuak3bys61.png?width=1574&format=png&auto=webp&s=eccf326f621d2bf1f65998c4aa0c8fd5485eede2

If an Athama person is talking about a man named Máanthá, they would refer to him typically by something other than his name, or a combination of the two. He could be ènyù (young man) or ènyù Máanthá (the young man Máanthá). If he is older than you, you can refer to him as thìènthè or ìnthí, with the latter being a bit more familiar than the former.

Athama artisans practice a form of endogamous polygamy called óotsú, where several women and one or two men marry one another in a marriage party. You would refer to your own mother yáaì*,* but you would refer to your mother's wives and husbands as either thìngá (parent) or yáì (used specifically for your mother's wives). For common families of just one father and one or two mothers, you would refer to your father as your ónè (this is considered very rude in artisan families!).

Only when someone is very familiar to you would you address them or refer to them by their name. Typically, spouses do not use each other's names unless the spouses are very close. The word thìótsú is used in artisan families, and the word ówì is used in common families.

Sorry, I didn't know what the exact term is. But characters often refer to each other with what their relationship is. E.g. Shidi, Shimei, Shixiong...

Is there anywhere with a list for all these 'honorifics' and what they mean? They're often explained in the translator's notes when they appear for the first time, but there are so many, it's hard to remember them all.

I'm Asian and I've been confused over this. Asians have honorifics for older male or female siblings or friends or companions. For example, "kuya" for Filipinos, "gege" for Chinese, "Oppa" for Korean, "Oniisan" for Japanese, etc the list goes on.

I never really thought much about this until I read discussions on how "English-only speakers sexualize honorifics" among the asian webnovel translation/fansubber community (hence why I did not mention other languages, idk what your opinions are on this matter, I just recently observed this) where some people claim that non-asians tend to overanalyze honorifics and give their own interpretations:

1. highly-sexualized

ex. She was flirting when she called him oppa!!!1

2. highly-literal

ex. He called her meimei so they have sibling relationship, shipping them is spiritually incest!!!1

When in reality, it's just normalized, it's something not worth overthinking about. I even call male friends who are older than me by just a year with honorifics, if we are close, then I call them by their names. But sometimes if I'm really really close with some people but I super respect them, the honorifics still remain. But then I realize it's something English speakers are not used of and only see via media like anime or drama series, so I can't really blame them for thinking it's something more than it should.

I tried looking up English honorifics, but only read formal ones and royalty titles. So I hope someone could explain why English language have aunts, uncle, mom and dad but nothing for siblings or acquaintances.

If there are better subreddit for this question, feel free to let me know.

EDIT: Hello, guys, thank you, thank you so much for contributing to the discussion. It was really interesting reading each of your answers on this. I guess the main conclusion to be made is that this type of usually age-dependent honorific does not really exist for the other side of the world.

When speaking to a doctor (MD), I refer to them as "Doctor" or "Doctor Smith". What should I say to a nurse practitioner? "Nurse Smith"?

Asking elsewhere would yield answers better in theory than practice, so I'm turning to you. Got any suggestions for gender neutral replacements for "ma'am" or "sir" that still carry some formality and authority? Asking someone if they have a preference can just fuel a distraction to an already agitated or less than focused individual. And I can't think of anything that conveniently conveys an expectation of more reasonable behavior quite the same.

If someone’s pronouns are they/them, how do I address them professionally? I’m pretty sure that Mr/Miss/Ms. is inappropriate correct? (PS this question is made with love)

Kind of a strange question, but idk where else to ask (I’ll probably cross post this to a few subreddits)

Basically, I (nb, 19) am a summer camp counselor for a nature day camp! Camp starts next week, and I’m going to be (mostly) interacting with 4-6 year olds. I’m nonbinary (afab, but unaligned) and I’m getting anxious about what kids are going to call me! All the other counselors are cis, and are going by Ms./Mr. [first name], but I’m not comfortable with either of those titles. Also, the camp is in a VERY conservative area (I pass 10 churches on my 15 minute drive to work, and the nearby college has been named one of the most conservative in the country.)

Current options I’ve thought of include Mx. MarsHerps, Counselor MarsHerps, or just MarsHerps, but I’m wondering if anyone here has any potential insight or better ideas.

I know Mx. is an option, but I’m worried kids won’t understand and will default to calling me Ms. because of how similar they sound. I’m worried Counselor is too formal/cumbersome, or that kids this young won’t understand it or be able to pronounce it. I’m worried just my name won’t come across as “hey, I’m in charge”, and using it on its own will undermine my authority or whatever, so I’m kinda at a loss.

TLDR; I’m spending the summer working with young kids with conservative parents and I don’t know what to have the kids call me.

Thanks in advance!!

Looking for recommendations for K-dramas like What's Wrong with Secretary Kim and While You Were Sleeping where the translators keep honorifics in Korean. So you read Oppa, Unni, Sunbae instead of brother, sister, senior.

I’m watching an anime where two friends add “don” to the end of their name as an honorific. I’ve never heard this one before, and couldn’t find much explanation about it online. When is this used? It definitely wasn’t “dono” either because they are close friends.

It's always kind of scary to put opinions/thoughts out there, but even so I feel like sharing some of my experience looking into Danganranpa content... This also have SPOILERS for major events in the game obviously.

I was talking with a friend about something that I noticed after finishing V3 and looking for Japanese playthroughs: Some of the honorifics like “san”, “kun”, “chan” that the cast uses in the original or the way the characters refer to each other in general kinda makes the difference in some situations…

Just so we’re clear, those differences are not negative differences or anything like that, it has more to do with nuances that maybe went unnoticed on the dub.

For instance, the characters with some exceptions all call the others by their surnames, as is the norm in Japanese society, and some with honorifics like "san" and "kun" to show respect like Shuichi, Kirumi, Tsumugi and Tenko. Some of them are more relaxed and use no honorifics like Kaito, Himiko and Maki and some uses “chan” to either be friendly like Kaede or Rantaro (as far as I remember anyway) or to be annoying like Kokichi (who calls everyone "chan").

The one that really stood out for me is that in the original Tenko sounds a lot more polite, and despite her hatred for “degenerate males”, she's always calling the boys by proper honorifics, like Saihara-san instead of just Shuichi, or Momota-san instead of Kaito. That in my opinion kinda shows right away that this whole man-hating thing was never meant to be take seriously and it was supposed to be a funny/annoying gag rather than the focus of her character. Other thing that I saw is the fact that Himiko, who always referred to everybody by their last names, said Tenko instead of Chabashira by the first time when she witnessed Tenko’s dead body inside the cage. Referring to others by their first name in Japan is a thing that only close friends do, so even if in the dub this scene was heartbreaking anyway, the idea that the first time ever Himiko showed warmth towards Tenko was over her dead body is even more depressing.

There’s also the way they handled Kaito and Shuichi’s friendship. Even though they kinda managed to find a decent replacement, which is the “bro” thing, in the Japanese version when he called him "bro" it was the first time Kaito called Shuichi “Shuichi” instead of Saihara. But then at the end of the 4th chapter he turned back to call him Saihara, to show signs of distance between them, only to revert back to S

When do I use the 세요 ending and when do I use the 십시오 ending? Are there other honorific endings? Do I use a different ending for talking about someone vs talking to someone? Im lost

My mom wants to celebrate it but I still got lots of backlogs and I prefer to work on em instead. But we had a delightful dinner earlier until my dad brought up that he'll be voting for Sara Duterte this 2022. So right now, I'm chugging up 3 bottles of soju alone. Puta, tatay kong dds.

I teach elementary and I’m the only gender non-conforming person in my school that I know of, so it will be new for everyone (including me!) I live in a pretty mixed area in regards to age, race, and politics. DMV area suburbs. I just don’t know what to expect from kids and parents. Thanks!

I am a woman in my mid 20s and would like to visit Japan as a research student. My Japanese is pretty bad so I'm sure most of the people I might encounter will realise I'm not trying to be disrespectful if I accidentally say something impolite, but I'd at least like to get the honorifics down.

Most of the guides I've read about how to address other people use a professional setting/workplace scenario as an example, but since I'd like to visit Japan as a student and will probably mostly interact with uni staff and other students in my age group, I'm not finding these super useful at the moment. I should also mention I'm a humanities/social studies researcher and, at least where I'm from in Europe, these departments are pretty relaxed, but I have no idea if this is also true of Japan.

Let's say there's some sort of student association at my uni for people interested in my particular research topic. I network a bit and become friendly acquaintances with some of the other students (ambitious given my current level of Japanese, but humour me). I assume I'd initially refer to everyone within my peer group as 'X-san', but would this eventually start coming off as distant/impersonal/unfriendly if I saw these people regularly? At what point is it okay to call a peer 'X-chan' or 'X-kun'? I hear younger Japanese people are a bit less formal about these things, but I don't know to what extent and if it's weird to still call someone 'X-san' after a certain number of interactions.

I'm also not totally sure how to refer to uni staff. I've already gotten emails that started with "Dear /u/idio_teka-san," from student office staff and I wanted to reply in a similar way but I just didn't really know what was appropriate. I'd usually opt for something like "Ms Tanaka" or "Professor Tanaka" depending on whether I was talking to a lecturer or not. This was fine, but I was pretty happy that they used an honorific next to my name even though the email was in English, so I thought it was a shame I couldn't respond similarly.

I am just curious about how the culture of honorific and perception of seniority looks like in the Balkans.

For those not familiar with honorific, it's basically like the title you add to one's name (like Mr. Ms. Sir, Madam), or in Asian context, the way you speak to someone who is elderly or who has a honorific title (just like how there is a different way of speaking to elderly in Korean and Japanese, or using "po" + 2nd person plural pronouns in my language, Tagalog). I wonder if Balkan cultures and languages have this.

Or consequently, I want to know if you take seniority seriously as well (since based from what I have observed, you tend to give respect to your elders and they seem to have more familial powers than your Western counterparts like the Britons, French, Germans, and Dutch). Like, other than you have a different manner of speaking to someone older or in a higher position (even outside the family, like a colleague who's a decade older), you have a different attitude and treatment towards them, like you take their opinions with a higher gravity, or you tend to take whatever they say as somewhat infallible because of their age (like age is treated as correlated with experience and wisdom).

Well, checking my flair, I'm from an Asian country, and we tend to take seniority to a fault, like we tend to take an elderly relative's words as gospel truth, even if it's not applicable, or even harmful, to this age. Good thing, millennials and Gen Z are seeing through the negatives of that kind of mindset and calling them out, but it will take a while before these things would be corrected.

I am sending an email to colleagues and just checking the accuracy here. I’ll use a Yakuza name for anonymity.

Suppose I have many colleagues with the last name “Kazuma.” Kazuma Murakami, Kazuma Kiryu, and Kazuma Yoshio.

So, when I refer to them as Kazuma San, everybody thinks I am referring to them. I could instead say “Kazuma Kiryu must take out the garbage,” but it feels like I should use the honorific. Then, in this case, should I say “Kazuma Kiryu San must take out the garbage.” Or is it not appropriate? Something else?

Thank you!

Of course I'm sure many feel the wntirw localization is off, but that's a debate I'm not having. Moving on.

I consume so much Japanese media that I tend to just automatically tune out a lot of the differences between what's actually being said and what the subs say, but this just struck me(on like, my 3rd run).

In typical Persona fashion, some of the more common Japanese honorifics are present: kun, chan, san, senpai, sensei. But there are, off the top of my head, 4 exceptions. 2 are how Mona refers to Ann and L. btw, is it a spoiler to say a character's name? Just to be safe it's L for now. Anyway, in English it's "Lady Ann/Lady L" aa opposed to "Ann/L-dono"

The other two that caught my attention are M.S. and Maruki being refered to as "Sir" and "Dr." respectively in English, while in JP they're both referred to as "Sensei". Which, in "M.S.*'s case, was actually somewhat relevant, since he was the only one I recall several influential adults referring to that way.

I could nitpick a few other things now that I'm really thinking about it, but basically it's got me wondering how they decided what distinctly Japanese things to leave alone, and what needed to be changed.

Is there a difference between neechan/niichan and no-neechan/niichan Same for ojisan and no-ojisan Sometimes I see Conan say "Ran-neechan" which makes sense, then Sera-no-neechan. Or sometimes he says Kogoro-ojisan then Kogoro-no-ojisan

Is there a difference between the honorifics with and without "no"?

Is the way people use honorifics at the end of their sentences the same/similar to people saying "Hey hows it going, my friend?" or if you don't like the person "Hey hows it going, jerk?"

I want to get an accurate frame of reference for what they are and how they're used, and that's the most similar thing i can think of.

I'm hoping to get results specific to the medieval period, ideally the Sassanid period, but any input is helpful!

Thoughts on the usage of honorifics? Does not using them take away from a fic? Or the opposite?