vousvoyer

present singular third person vousvoyers · participle present vousvoyering · participle past vousvoyered · past vousvoyered · alternative vouvoyer

1. Synonym of vouvoy.

   After using the familiar form "tu" you can’t go back to vousvoyering.

   1995 November 30, Charles Stuart Kennedy, quotee, Anne O. Cary, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, published 2015, page 46

   5 more examples

   The much thornier problem of whether to vousvoyer or tutoyer Ahmadou solved itself. At first I sought refuge in the impersonal on ("Can one have a glass of water, please?" instead of "Please bring me a glass of water.") But Ahmadou was soon tutoyer-ing me as often as vousvoyer-ing me, although he continued to use the formal "Monsieur," so I came to use the familiar form in addressing him.

   1966, Developing World: AUFS Readings, American Universities Field Staff, Inc., →LCCN, page 110

   It was typical that once I learned to speak French, I could tutoyer both men, though they formally “vousvoyered” each other.

   1987, Jeremy Bernstein, The Life It Brings: One Physicist’s Beginnings, Ticknor & Fields, →ISBN, page 151

   It irritated her that since the bedroom incident he presumed to tutoyer her. She always took care to vousvoyer him back. With icy politeness.

   1988, Patrick Alexander, Ryfka, Arrow Books, Century Hutchinson Limited, published 1989, →ISBN, page 214

   As for vousvoyering the help, Mahouna has tutoyéed me from the beginning.

   1991, Susan Louise Blake, Letters from Togo, University of Iowa Press, page 24

   Everybody present, including me, thought it would be silly to vousvoyer somebody in bed;[…]I've never needed to address someone in a communal shower, but I'd bet hard money that you'd vousvoyer.[…]One tutoyers aquaintances,^([sic]) unless there is a reason not to, and one vousvoyers strangers.[…]I know who I ought to be vousvoyering and who I ought to be tutoyering, usually, although I occasionally slip up anyway.[…]I started into a sentence like that, using "vous", and my colleague absently corrected me to "tu", and then said hastily "but you can vousvoyer me if you want..." (I think he was considering the possibility I was vousvoyering him on purpose because I was mad at him, which I wasn't).[…]François Mitterand^([sic]) is said to have vousvoyered his dog

   1997 February 28, Elizabeth D. Zwicky, “NO CARRIER”, in soc.motss (Usenet)

   Synonyms: vouvoy