Friday, September 1, 2017

Have You Noticed...

...that women talk to their own children in a different manner than to children of somebody else? Even if they in general like these children, there is still a difference so that one always can distinguish between a caregiver and a real mother (DISCLAIMER: I'm not talking about foster parents, which is quite a different situation).

It's sort of like nurses who always try to address their patients in that pretend cheerful tone:) They mean well, but no one ever talks to his family in this way...

5 comments:

  1. Maybe when they were young, but now that my older is older, I don't speak differently at all. And when they were younger, I spoke a lot of baby talk, but not to other little children.

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  2. It's not so much the words or even the tone of the voice, but rather the manner. When it's your family it's different, of course.

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  3. Being from the American south originally, I certainly do speak in a different manner with just about everyone. I'm a lot more "southern" sounding -- natural -- with my family. With people I don't know well or when I'm conducting business on the phone, to avoid a lot of "Pardon me" and "What did you say?", I avoid southern slang and try to neutralize my accent. Maybe it is kind of like the formal and informal ways of speaking.

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  4. That is to say, the distinction between more or less formal ways of speaking.

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