"Usted"678910
In a class I was teaching recently a 67 year old student, obviously very wealthy and as some of the girls have mentioned, something of a señorito, told us he won't permit people in shops and restaurants to tutear him.
He reckons it's a sign of disrespect unless you know someone very well. At the same time, during breaks he's quite happy to be *tuteado* by the rest of the class, all of whom are younger than him 19 to 40.
This is such a subtle and generational thing that I feel I'll never fully grasp the shades of significance it holds socially. To complicate matters further the young people in the class seem to think this opinion is outdated and far from guay.
Would a native Spanish person care to comment on this clearly very complex question? Thanks.
3 Answers
Native speaker might have a wide range of opinions.
In most of Colombia for example, usted is the form used to address everyone, whether it is an elderly/higher ranked person or children, the only exception being the Caribbean coast, where tuteo dominates and usted is left for formalities; Costa Ricans have something similar.
In the rest of the Hispanosphere one would normally use it to address the elderly, higher ranked people or strangers that look older than you, for example a clerk at a bank or an office of some sort. But it also depends on each person, there are some people that tutean everyone, from the yougest child to the oldest person, which can be frowned upon, but noone can control the way others speak, so it's pretty much up to you to decide how to use it.
When in Spain, I always say usted to older, professional people, or to very elderly people. As I'm a middleaged woman, if I speak to youngsters I tell them to tuetear me. Because I feel it to be my privilige to choose, in that situation.
In meetings with a bankmanager I would use usted, without a doubt! Even if he was 10 years old..
However, I'm certainly no native.. I grew up with the difference, however, as we make it in Swedish too, but it is not used much any more. When I was young we 'niade' all our teachers.. Not nowadays!
I think that since in your classroom the majority are young students, he maybe feels strange to be the only one called as usted, so he allows to be tuteado. But this situation changes when he is not in the role of a student anymore, I mean when he is in other social spaces like shops or restaurants.
I remember that something similar happened in my English class. Some of our classmates were older than us, and since the manner in the classroom was the tuteo we could tutear them when doing some excercises or dynamics together ^^. But in other situations I don't think we would have done it, unless they ask us to do it.
In Peru we call someone as usted depending on the difference of age, how close we are with a person, and the situation. Usted can be my uncle, usted can be my professor (even if he is not an older person). In general, it is a way to show respect, and maybe to keep a certain distance with a person.
