Italian Language Question - Formality rules

The formal form you used would have been the more correct form that I would have used, given the fact the person working at the shop is not a friend. However language evolves and I am a boomer. Nowadays, especially younger generations, are more likely to use the “tu” (informal) in most circumstances. Therefore more often than not, millennials or even older people address me with the informal “tu” form even though they don’t know me and even though I could be their father. And of course if I address them back with the informal “tu” form, they wouldn’t care, and actually may even prefer it. Not so young people like me are probably more likely to use the formal “Lei” form in similar circumstances, but less so the younger generations. You would have done ok with both forms, but for us boomers, the formal form would be more appropriate.

An Italian friend related a story to me recently. He has had a certain accountant for a dozen years, and each and every time they spoke they always used the 'Lei' form - formal. Last year, the accountant idly mentioned watching a hockey game over the weekend - my friend had watched it as well - so they rehashed the game a bit, and my friend explained how he was a goalie for a local team. Since that moment forward, they have always used the 'tu' form - informal.

A foreigner with basic italian using the informal "tu" would offend only a grumpy perfectionist.

It's obvious a student begins learning the simpler phrases and then moves forward. As it is obvious There would be no lack of respect, but an effort to speak Italian.

We are not in France where everybody behaves like an Emeritus College Professor of French in incognito.

In my little village in Italy, no one, not even the “anziani” or seniors, uses the Lei form. I used it with my (boomer-aged like me) general contractor at the beginning and got a rant about how much he hates that, we are no longer living in feudal times with nobles and serfs, we are all equal, on and on. He said I should always use ‘tu’ except with doctors and policemen. Granted, on the main street of this village is a house with a big Che Guevara sign in the window, so there may be a historic Communist influence, but he has a point.

I still try to wait to be addressed first and then match it, but it has always been tu to me, and no one has seemed offended when I used it in return.

I have no idea how generalized this is - I have heard a lot more Lei usage up north around Milan - but thought I’d share my experiences.

So interesting Nelly !!

And thanks for responding too, Dario and Roberto. All very instructive insights.

Like the much more complex courtesy rules of the Japanese language, a foreigner has more leeway than an Italian, and obviously a formal situation would need more care than an informal one.

We, people older than 40, were educated to address our teachers and adult persons with "Lei" and we still expect being addressed with "Lei" from young people. For example, I see with pleasure that one of the young ladies in the 25-30 bracket at my office still address us, poor old chaps, with "Lei" instead of the ubiquitous "Tu". She is the more intelligent of the pack, by the way, and we assigned her to assist important persons visiting, some very important indeed; she got several times positive feedback for her style.
After one year we told her she can use "Tu", but she still has some resistance in addressing with a familiar form an older person at job.

A small thing, easily overlooked, is that "Ciao" is used with the persons you would use "Tu", and "Buongiorno/Buonasera" is more respectful. As this does not involve complex verbs to conjugate, it would be better to stay on the safe side and address people you do not know with "Buongiorno/Buonasera".

Thanks everyone, that is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. German was the first language with formal tense I learned and - at least then - they took it pretty seriously. (They even passed a law that you couldn't address police doing their duty in the familiar informal way.) So while I work on improving my Italian the cultural aspects of language like formality and local differences in usage or vocabulary are still beyond my understanding and are not addressed by translation sites/apps.

Grazie mille,
=Tod

Thank you Tod for asking the question, and thanks to those who answered. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks about stuff like this, after the fact. And for the record, I have a hard time not calling the parents of my childhood friends, “Mr./Mrs”, even though we are well into middle age.

This is why i love the forum. Thanks for the thoughtful question and responses!

Didn't English (a dialect of German) used to have a more commonly used formal usage: thy, thee, thou, thine.

Stan's question made me look into it - so while it's off topic it seems that "you" was originally only used to address groups of people you (all) like voi in Italian. Then "you" became to used to be in the formal way like Lei of addressing a singular person- 'your majesty' - and "thou" became the informal. And then English decided to throw away all convention and use "you" to mean both singular and plural groups in both a formal and informal way. Hence the problem with the ambiguity in the use of you (singular) versus you (all) in verb conjugation.

It's interesting that while other languages become less formal English decided instead to address everyone using the formal really destroying the concept of class or position in the language.

The only problem with learning English as your first language is you can't complain about other languages as you study them because English as always worse. Honestly, I'm glad I'm not trying to learn English as a second language and I apologize to anyone that has to.

Thanks to you (all) for the answers and interesting discussion,
=Tod