Is it “tu” or “usted” instead?

Here’s a brief primer on one important difference between English and Spanish. Somewhere along the linguistic ladder, people stopped using “thee” and “thou” in English, whereas the Romance languages, for example Spanish, retained forms like “usted.”

I won’t speculate as to whether the use of particular word combinations determines respect, or lack thereof, or is the result of it. Which came first?

Let me explain:

Once, when I was a child, my dad asked me — in front of company — to explain whatever I’d learned that day in the classroom of Sister Mary Migrainia at Immaculate Conception School. Dad called me by my baptismal name, Arturo, which prompted an answer in Spanish, “¿Que?”

Big mistake. Why? First, we had company, and whatever carelessness and callousness we ever displayed when alone needed to be rectified when we had guests. Second mistake: In our house, one never responded to an elder’s question with “¿que?” I saw Dad was both annoyed and embarrassed over my paucity of ethics, as he explained in front of his guests, “The correct answer — and I’ve told you before — is ‘¿mande usted?’” That’s a variation of “yes sir,” “please repeat,” or “pardon me?”

After all these years I still struggle with whether using “usted” generates more courtesy, or whether it’s simply that courteous people use “usted.”

The courtesy question came to mind as I heard some kids speaking Spanish to an elder at the city recreation center. Though the kids seemed polite and attentive, one of them kept using “¿que?” and “tu,” whereas people like my dad would have disapproved. We learned in school and at home, that “tu” ought to be used only in addressing a friend, someone younger, or a family member. In our home there was no option: My parents allowed “tu” only among us children. Strange that the plural of “tu” is “ustedes,” which has its own implied form of courtesy.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about trying to become friendly with a Danish restaurateur, whom I heard speak Spanish and who operated a Mexican buffet in downtown Copenhagen. In my column I wrote that the man obviously resented my attempt to be friendly and responded with the “¿que?” that means not merely “what?” but “how dare you?” How had I erred in addressing the man in his native language? Remember, the man’s word came out with considerable volume and speed. It obviously had begun deep down in his throat.

Meanwhile my e-mail pal Ben Moffett wrote in my Work of Art blog that perhaps the Spanish-speaking café owner, who I thought could have passed for a northern New Mexican, bristled at my attempt at familiarity. Moffett reminded me that I’d addressed the owner with “¿como estás?” which is like asking a peer, a friend or a social inferior how it’s going.

Sure enough. I checked the column I’d written about the man’s taco emporium, and Ben is right: I used “estás,” whereas “está” would have been politer. So, when you ask, “¿como está?” (without the final “s,”) the “usted” is implied, and that’s considered courteous.

I have no doubt that my father, who left us in 1998, would have agreed that I committed the same kind of transgression that I’d been guilty of in 1950. Even if I’m clearly older than Señor Restaurateur, I need to show more respect. Then, as we become better acquainted, I can use “tu.”

It’s regrettable that in my experience, we don’t hear many young Las Vegas denizens using Spanish. Along with the diminution of its use, the words “tu” and “usted” virtually vanish. I wonder whether the politeness and courtesy factors play any role in that phenomenon.

• • •

Another frequent contributor to this column is Klare Schmidt. I wrote last week about a solecism committed on the cover of Parade magazine, in which a female football coach was identified as “one of the only” such coaches. How can “one of” ever be an “only”?

Klare wrote that she’d “read right past” the error, but “my aging brain reversed and I went over the statement again, shook my head and read it again.”

She decided to e-mail me about her discovery. Then, “when finally I settled down to read your latest ‘Work of Art’ I couldn’t believe my eyes.” I’d beaten her to it.

Ah, it’s comforting that there are other comma-chasers besides me. It’s encouraging that a number of readers have become honorary members of the language brigade. I hope to receive more such feedback.

• • •

It’s back-to-school time, and with that come new lessons in spelling. Look at the expensive electronic message board on Mills, next to the RHS football field.

In anticipation of the start of school, someone apparently has planted a few words to test students’ spelling skills. See if you can decipher the following, which have been on the message board for several days: “Aigust,” “Augusr” and “August 31th.”

We assume those in charge of the message board really do know the veridical spelling of the month just passed and that the creative way of spelling it is merely a test — just to see if the students are paying attention.

• • •

My grandchildren believe Pampah is “so old that when he was in school, there was no history.” That’s close, but there are a few people older than I. This weekend, my alma mater, Immaculate Conception School, is holding a reunion in Las Vegas for the classes of 1954, ’55 and ’56.

To the alumni of those classes, I was just a kid, although I graduated, laude-how-come, just a year later, in ’57.

Welcome back!