"Z panem i kmieciem po świecie" "around the world with a master and a churl" : on tradition and modernity in addressing

The development of systems of address can be viewed from a wider perspective than merely quest for individual freedom, progressive democratization of social relations and a tendency pragmatically to shorten the distance between interlocutors. The privileged class (the social elites) are losing in importance, and there is also a culture-forming function that is served by lower classes’ adopting its prestigious forms of address, by the radiation of its attractive patterns of behaviour. It is a process which shapes linguistic behaviour and etiquette in many countries of the world, especially where the patronymic system has been ousted by the aristocratic honorificative system of address (cf. Pianka 2010). As a result of these changes, more formal forms, honorific pronouns in particular, began to be used in neutral contexts, such as e.g. Engl. Sir, you, Pol. Pan, Ger. Ihr/Sie, Hung. Maga, Ön, Portug. Você, together with the honorific plural of verbs (2, 3Pl. or 3Sg.). Modernity, however, is the time of dissemination of American cultural patterns and of attempts at jettisoning all honorific forms in interpersonal relations, not even with the exception being made for schools. New customs can justifiably raise doubts as to the role that such a paedocratic system has to play in culture