Somebody just wants you to THINK it does -- but it's all an [link|http://zapatopi.net/belgium.html|evil conspiracy!]

(Or, for the less Teutonic-speaking among us, "I called him 'it', in order to be a little mean." :-)

The Swedes officially abandoned their word corresponding to "Sie", "ni" (No Monty Python jokes, please -- it's pronounced "nee"), in... Uh, 1968? -67? Thereabouts. And since I grew up there from 1969, I'm definitely more Swedish than German in my (a-)social manners; I even Tutoie les Francais, if I'm not consciously reminding myself to Vous them.

Heck, the specific region of Sweden where I grew up (Dalarna, or 'Dalecarlia' as I've seen it rendered in English), was known for its egalitarian manners even *before* the Du-reform... There's a wonderful old joke about a rustic meeting Prince Bertil(*) for the first time, sometime loong before Swedes started calling everybody 'du' -- except the king, whom we *still* call 'Your Majesty'. Anyway, the point is, this fellow -- quite possibly some local notable, an alderman or town councillor or something; I can't remember -- says to the prince (correctly called "Your Royal Highness") something which works in German, too: "hier Duzen wir alle, ausser dich und deinem Bruder!"

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(*): The uncle, or possibly grand-uncle, of our current King Carl XVI Gustaf. He died about a decade ago; had lived his life as a conscientious royal, the perpetual stand-in first for his monarch and father (or brother), then for his monarch and nephew (or grand-nephew). Hmm, if I remember correctly about it being "your brother" the yokel uses to refer to the king in that joke, then Bertil and "Cal Gustf"(+) must be grand-uncle and grand-nephew, since the latter took over the throne from his grandfather, his father having died young. Except, in his younger days Bertil wasn't averse to risking his life; he raced cars (under some pseudonym, probably) with such enthusiasm that he was known as "the Motor Prince" until the day he died.

(+): Our current king was/is a dyslexic; that's how he signed his name on a rock down in the old copper mine in Falun($). I saw it myself, when I went down there with my class on a school trip in fifth or sixth grade; he had, ISTR, been about the same age when he wrote it. The mine was cool enough, but the high point of the trip was when I and my best friend came across a book store that had SF paperbacks on sale -- I must have bought three or four; Bester, Williamson... At that age, we still read the Swedish translations, of course.

($): The provincial capital of Dalarna/'Dalecarlia', home of the world's oldest stock corporation, Stora Kopparbergs Bergslag AB, which ran the mine from ~1300 AD or something up into this century; at its peak, in the 17th century, it produced more than half the world's production of copper. Nowadays, they're in wood, pulp, and paper, and apparently officially changed their name to just "STORA" some years ago.