How are you suddenly a bloody expert in Japanese politeness when you made the thread yesterday asking about it and you still need to learn basic grammar? Piss off telling me I "might be offending" people with my own usage of Japanese acquired through years of observation and immersion when you don't know the first thing. Stop thinking you know everything and have some humility. Same goes for your attitude in your other grammar thread.

Oh good you are so angry.

I never claimed being expert Japanese politeness I just see situation and make my conclusions. 
there are plenty of contradictions and just general human nature and culture
Also it is no way related to grammar because you don't need to know language to know culture.

If you claim knowledge acquired by observations you are very welcome but you must provide statistic of how people react to politeness levels not how you behave yourself and how you are told to behave.

Merely saying "I do it like that and thus everyone should do same" is not a valid argument. Just like if some american guy is saying that US is fighting ISIS that doers not mean that US is not funding ISIS instead.

also I am not telling you how to speak I am just expressing doubts. For example idea that if you make a hint to someone that he/she is old this will be often understood as offense.
And you don't know if you are not offending those people you never asked them what kind or speech they prefer and why.

@Digix.  When you get to an advanced level of Japanese I hope you will come back and read what you wrote here and in the thread you started about grammar.  There is a lot to be learned from these threads about politeness and respect.

(2016-02-09, 12:33 pm)Digix Wrote: there is no reason why uneven relationships cannot exist. 
but according to other replies it is not necessary that you understand intentions of those people you mention well.

you are one who speaks to them in polite form as your own choice and they may be just wondering why you do that and some probably can be even offended.
I am pretty sure if you used plain for too, they woud react just fine

I'm pretty sure you're completely wrong. You -do- have to consider intention, but you -also- have to consider the current situation (public / private / formal / informal ), and you have to consider relative status (age / authority).
He's describing cases where relative status is more important than the other two factors put together.

I don't understand how you can have gone from asking about the basic meaning and usage of politeness levels when you started this thread to speaking with authority on it to contradict people with more experience in both the language and the culture than you have.

Quote:This looks similar to "yo" and "ne" usage where yo is dominat and nee is submissive statement it does not depend on your overall status but depends on what role you are playing in current situation.

This doesn't even make sense. That's not how よ and ね work at all. よ , roughly speaking, marks that you stating something you think the other person may not know; and importantly, it also softens the statement. The same statement without よ sounds more blunt than the statement with よ even if nothing else changes. ね simply invites your conversation partner to comment on your statement, with a fairly strong sense that that comment will be in agreement with what you've said. They serve totally different functions. They can even be used at the end of the same sentence (always in the order よね).
(It's actually a lot more complicated than this and there are gender specific and region specific usages but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.)

Quote:I am not sure how valid it is in japan  but anything what implies that you are old is highly offensive in western world, they go as far as banning entire words that were used for ages.
according to anime japan is pretty much same.

This is absolutely not correct. Japan has a culture that sees age as a kind of status, and it's important to respect that status.

In anime most characters are fairly young and fairly close in age, and there are often romantic tensions implied, so a few things happen. If you're single and too young to be a respected elder but a little bit older than those around you, you're going to be unhappy with being treated as older than a group of people that you see as desirable romantic partners.

Also, if a character is more concerned with personal appearance and vanity than with personal status and authority, then they are going to wish to be seen as younger. This can be used for characterization, essentially to show that a character is shallow.

Both of these reasons can be used for comedic effect - an older character who in real life would be addressed the way the other characters address him getting upset about it can show that they are shallow or have unrealistic romantic ideas being destroyed (or both!) by the way they are being addressed.

Of course, in real life too, there is a discomfort for anyone of a certain age realizing that they are crossing from one stage of life into the next... it's not strictly limited to anime that people are distressed by being addressed as older, but it's unusual to protest aloud.

Anime is simply not an accurate mirror of Japanese culture and you cannot use it as a basis for how things actually are. It looks rather absurd for your to compare what you've seen in anime to what someone has actually experienced living in Japan.

Here is an episode of Erin's challenge that shows the politeness level between her and an older student.

https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/lesson12/basic/index.html

dialog Wrote:先輩： 咲！
さき： あ、先輩！
先輩： 見学の人？
エリン： はい。
先輩： 中で見たら？
エリン： 見てもいい？
さき： エリン！？だめよ。
さき： 先輩には、「見てもいいですか」。
エリン： 見てもいいですか？
先輩： どうぞ。

You can see the reaction on Saki's and the senior's faces when Erin didn't use the correct form of politeness to the senior. Shock! I thought this clip was relevant to the topic.

I want to add that the people who eschew Keigo are the "Big Shots" (bosses talking with employees, veteran talking with newbs, etc.), so when you talk without using Keigo you are NOT sounding "informal and down-to-earth", but rather the very opposite, you sound like an arrogant person who thinks you are better than the others.

People will describe you as "偉そう”.

(2016-02-09, 12:33 pm)Digix Wrote: If so, then usage of polite language is, like I said ,dependent on your own choice and attitude not on some language requirements.

The usage or non-usage of polite language isn't set in stone like syntax. If you are talking to an elder and use plain form, the things you said don't suddenly become "wrong" in the same way as saying: "rans stores I to" in English. The usage or non-usage of certain degrees of politeness is more along the lines of "social incorrectness." This still doesn't mean you can/should ignore politeness in a language because its a 'social construct' and not a language construct, because doing so is likely to impact your life directly.

Language is about communicating and interacting with people so being able to use and understand politeness usage are still just as core to the language as knowing how to put together a syntactically correct sentence. Some might argue that "I never plan to talk to people in Japanese so I don't need to know politeness stuff." but by ignoring politeness rules, or remaining ignorant to it, you may very well be missing some meta-information that say, an author of a book wanted send across by using politeness language in a conversation.

Quote:I don't understand how you can have gone from asking about the basic meaning and usage of politeness levels when you started this thread to speaking with authority on it to contradict people with more experience in both the language and the culture than you have.

the reason why I started objecting si because I received some replies that confirm my version and some that contradict, so i see that it is not so simple.
I was pretty much convinced and disappointed already.

by the way formal/informal situation is synonymous with intimacy as formal by definition is not intimate and informal is intimate relationship.
public/private is extension of previous  term because you want to display certain type of relationship to public.

Quote:This doesn't even make sense. That's not how よ and ね work at all. よ , roughly speaking, marks that you stating something you think the other person may not know; and importantly, it also softens the statement. The same statement without よ sounds more blunt than the statement with よ even if nothing else changes. ね simply invites your conversation partner to comment on your statement, with a fairly strong sense that that comment will be in agreement with what you've said. They serve totally different functions. They can even be used at the end of the same sentence (always in the order よね).

what you say is almost precisely same as I say except that you use different terminology.

"Inviting to comment" is being submissive because you are leaving topic open  nee is basically question form sentence as if you are asking approval this is absolutely evident from intonation. where e is usually extended into nee or neee
yo is signaling that you do not accept comments to your claim. like if child is saying to his father "breakfast is ready yo" that means he is not accepting excuses like "wait a minute" or something like that. You idea about information which person may not know follows same rule, because by using you you are stating that I know this for sure and you don't. also I think if you are not sure about that new information either you will not use yo. or maybe you will use yonee signaling that you are alowing to question your authority

I take this information from "Japanese the manga way" book which presents example that confirm my claims.

Quote:This is absolutely not correct. Japan has a culture that sees age as a kind of status, and it's important to respect that status.

Recent social studies data please..
Considering current demography of japan I highly doubt that to be true. 
I am sure it was true few decades ago but not likely now.
situation is similar in my area, it was common to treat older people with respect and now they are treated like trash. 
Of course I cant prove that japan is in same situation, but i see lots of confirmations on Youtube

real life experience is typically mirror image of fiction in that area. Of course I am not taking anime as reference but it provides very good clues on what people want and how they feel and what are their dreams.



also I am not discussing how one is supposed to use polite language, I am discussing reasons behind using certain firms of language and what it really means

like if teacher is speaking to you in plain and you reply in more polite way what is the reason behind that:
1 you are afraid of teacher blowing up in anger because you dared to question her superiority
2 you are afraid that teacher will be upset for ruining her status.
2 you are admitting her superiority.
3 you simply obey rules without any thinking.
4 you want to raise authority of your teacher in front of other people.
5 you want to please her by lying.

also same question arise on why teacher used plain language on you in public. 
1 She thinks about you as socially inferior (whats is plain insult to me but it may be normal for submissive type people)
2 She is asking you to be informal with her
3 She is obeying rules  she do not understand and care herself and her position allows her to play safe.

If language changes depending on situation we can easily deduce what kind of person it is and what kind or relationships they have. also we can use our own language to test attitude of someone towards you

If student will always reply to the teacher in polite form form and teacher will use plain this means that their style is totally meaningless as it does not reflect their relationship but reflect only culture and language norms. and other people will complain not about your attitude towards them but about your disregard for norms and traditions.


by the way in my own language I typical alternate randomly on familiar and formal forms and observe reaction.

I'm sorry, I realize now that you are an expert in Japanese. I will stop trying to push my own poor misconceptions of the language on you and go back to reading my Japanese novel.

(2016-02-09, 5:24 pm)vix86 Wrote:

(2016-02-09, 12:33 pm)Digix Wrote: If so, then usage of polite language is, like I said ,dependent on your own choice and attitude not on some language requirements.

The usage or non-usage of polite language isn't set in stone like syntax. If you are talking to an elder and use plain form, the things you said don't suddenly become "wrong" in the same way as saying: "rans stores I to" in English. The usage or non-usage of certain degrees of politeness is more along the lines of "social incorrectness." This still doesn't mean you can/should ignore politeness in a language because its a 'social construct' and not a language construct, because doing so is likely to impact your life directly.

Language is about communicating and interacting with people so being able to use and understand politeness usage are still just as core to the language as knowing how to put together a syntactically correct sentence. Some might argue that "I never plan to talk to people in Japanese so I don't need to know politeness stuff." but by ignoring politeness rules, or remaining ignorant to it, you may very well be missing some meta-information that say, an author of a book wanted send across by using politeness language in a conversation.

Of course I am not that stupid to risk my social position.
but at same time I am not accepting those social constructs and I guess same is valid for many other people.


If rules of politeness are not set in stone they become useful tool in your conversation and it woud be stupid to ignore them
In fact I would start using them in the first conversation but it is unlikely that there will be a chance to try it.
This is great way to manipulate your own status and attitude towards yourself however it is important to know what you are doing and what to expect.

Also it is very pleasant to see what's happening in manga, especially when you notice that meta-information . 
For example  in one manga I noticed that -kun was changed into -chan  which was obvious that from now on relationship status is changed.

'Social constructs'... You know what else is a social construct? Possession. Therefore, I will forego the restrictions upon me by this social construct and take all your stuff.

What? You don't like that I've blatantly ignored the rules of society? Well, it's not my problem, because it's just a social construct.

...
Now, with that out of the way:
I was running late to an appointment with my Japanese tutor not too long ago; because I only had a short amount of time to send a message to her and didn't want to do extra fiddling with my phone's keyboard (really need to switch back to a non-swipe), I used regular forms and even dropped the apology; I was lightly scolded for it (forgiven when I apologized again for being late and explained I didn't have time to type, not that I had ever actually offended her). I've known her for over a year, and our conversations are fairly casual (I use です and ます because she's older than me and, in that setting, my teacher, even though she told me to call her さん instead of 先生); she's not old. This is current Japanese.

Like The others have said, once you get more experience you'll understand the mistake you're making here. To reiterate my last post: you're respecting society by speaking with the correct politeness.

If you still don't believe us, ask a Japanese person.

(2016-02-09, 5:51 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: I'm sorry, I realize now that you are an expert in Japanese. I will stop trying to push my own poor misconceptions of the language on you and go back to reading my Japanese novel.

You better start reading "Japanese the Manga Way", it sounds like that has all you need.

(2016-02-09, 5:28 pm)Digix Wrote: "Inviting to comment" is being submissive because you are leaving topic open  nee is basically question form sentence as if you are asking approval this is absolutely evident from intonation. where e is usually extended into nee or neee
yo is signaling that you do not accept comments to your claim.

...

like if teacher is speaking to you in plain and you reply in more polite way what is the reason behind that:
1 you are afraid of teacher blowing up in anger because you dared to question her superiority
2 you are afraid that teacher will be upset for ruining her status.
2 you are admitting her superiority.
3 you simply obey rules without any thinking.
4 you want to raise authority of your teacher in front of other people.
5 you want to please her by lying.

Shakespeare is appropriate:

Quote:There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

I don't think you understand how narrow your view is.  Whatever your personal opinions are, you will be seen as rude (or as a poorly educated foreigner) if you can't use language appropriate to the Japanese viewpoint of the situation.

(2016-02-09, 5:28 pm)Digix Wrote: "Inviting to comment" is being submissive because you are leaving topic open  nee is basically question form sentence as if you are asking approval this is absolutely evident from intonation. where e is usually extended into nee or neee
yo is signaling that you do not accept comments to your claim. like if child is saying to his father "breakfast is ready yo" that means he is not accepting excuses like "wait a minute" or something like that. You idea about information which person may not know follows same rule, because by using you you are stating that I know this for sure and you don't. also I think if you are not sure about that new information either you will not use yo. or maybe you will use yonee signaling that you are alowing to question your authority

I take this information from "Japanese the manga way" book which presents example that confirm my claims.

You need to read JTMW more carefully then because I am not see the exact same thing you are. But I did see the example sentence you referred to. SomeCallMeChris gave you the correct usages of よ　and ね and that explanation is IN JTMW. "Yo" is not just a "dominant" as "Ne" is "submissive".  

Japanese the Manga way Wrote:pg. 11 Requesting confirmation with ne

Ne can also represent an explicit request for confirmation, and in many such cases it carries the force of a genuine question, not merely a rhetorical one. But even then it expects the listener to agree or answer in the affirmative.

「一ノ関鮎美さんですね。」

The man asking Ms. Ichinoseki is not at all "inviting the listener" to comment or "asking for approval". The speaker expects the listener to speak and agree or answer in the affirmative. This is an example that contracts ね being submissive.

(2016-02-11, 12:11 am)RawrPk Wrote: The man asking Ms. Ichinoseki is not at all "inviting the listener" to comment or "asking for approval". The speaker expects the listener to speak and agree or answer in the affirmative. This is an example that contracts ね being submissive.

I actually decided to pull out the DBJG because I was mixed up on something with daro/desho used for confirmation and checked the entry on ね as well.

Page 287


That said, most uses of ne that I've heard of I think, are in situations where you expect affirmation. ね isn't suppose to function as an actual question final particle like か or の when you are probing for information.

EDIT: Should probably also add this small tidbit. From the ne entry.

Note 6:

Quote:The ne of confirmation or agreement is used after another sentence final particle, the question marker ka. Ka ne means 'I am not sure if ~, am I right?'. The ne of ka ne is pronounced with falling intonation.
山下くんは京大に入れますかね。 - I'm not sure whether Mr.Yamashita can get into Kyoto University. What do you say?

Thanks for taking the time to share the ね entry. It's actually really informative. Had no clue that かね was even grammatically possible.

From what I understand of ね, yes the speaker is indeed asking for confirmation, but not always seen as someone who is submissive to the listener/hearer. That was the point I wanted to show OP. Wanting input from someone doesn't necessarily make a person "submissive".

Just to give a very clear counterexample to the idea that keigo is about familiarity and not politeness - open any article on the Japanese Wikipedia, or on any news website other than NHK. They are, by and large, written in "plain" language, and the only places where you'll find です's and ます's are the external bits aimed directly at the reader: notifications, disclaimers, apologies, etc. Now why would encyclopaedias and news outlets feel the need to present information to you in a way that suggests they're your close friend? Resources for learning Japanese tend not to emphasize this fact as strongly as those about Korean, but politeness and formality are two separate parameters. Official business correspondence is high in both of them, a friendly chat between two childhood friends of the same age is usually low in both, while everything else can vary. An academic article isn't addressed to anyone in particular, so it doesn't need to be polite to anyone, but the style needs to be formal if you want it to be taken seriously. On the other hand, a male school or college student hanging out after classes with fellow students from year groups above his (or those in the same group, but not particularly familiar to him yet) may want to stick to です and ます and use 僕 as a first person pronoun (less formal than 私, more polite than 俺).

Havind said that, Digix, I know I've suggested that you might be a troll before and, truth be told, I'm still not entirely convinced that this isn't the case, but in this case I actually do see a grain of truth underneath all your misunderstandings and condescending pronouncements. Some of your propositions reminded me of this Japan Times article from a couple of years ago. To wit:

Roger Pulvers Wrote:...If you were asked to describe the Japanese language, what would you say?

You might point out features of the way it is used, specifying perhaps how it can be subtlely sensitive to the occasion. When formal or polite expressions are called for, as when speaking to a superior or someone older, you may cite how honorifics, known as keigo, are used. When a confrontation between speakers seems to be evident, you would perhaps point out how ambiguous forms of speech may come into play to avoid unpleasantness. And you may even add that Japanese is full of pauses and silences, since it is a language that avoids self-assertion. It also often omits the subject in a sentence, as the language favors indirect speech.

But are these features belonging to the Japanese language, or are they traits of a Japanese personality? Does a language have intrinsic features such as subtlety, sensitivity, ambiguity and self-assertion — or are these features of usage by a certain people at a certain time in their history?
[...]
Why should people have to “act like Japanese” just because they use the language?

It is high time the Japanese realized that the qualities they ascribe to their language are features of usage that can be and are being modified by myriad circumstances in the passage of time. The more foreigners who speak Japanese, the greater benefit it will be for the Japanese to understand what is linguistically intrinsic in their language and what is simply custom.

The use of the Japanese language by Japanese is both elegantly concise and impressively flexible. A language itself, of course, cannot be either “verbose” or “inarticulate,” since these are social, not linguistic, phenomena. Hence I have met hundreds of verbose Japanese people, because the language is just as good a medium for allowing people to talk the hind legs off a donkey as any other.

A language is a medium. It is a vehicle that we drive, sometimes slow, sometimes fast; sometimes clumsily, sometimes adeptly. It all depends on the driver. The number of words in a language in no way limits a people’s expressiveness. It is how they are subtlely variegated and combined that produces the expressiveness.

The Japanese language today has become a vehicle driven by different nationalities, thanks to the many non-Japanese living, working and active in public life here. This is giving Japanese people a more objective view of their own language not as an exclusive ethnic code but as a normal vehicle of communication. The days when a Japanese listens to a foreigner speaking Japanese with skeptical disbelief are over.

Some of the author's premises and conclusions are more disputable than others, but I think there are plenty of valid points here. So I guess no, the grammar of the Japanese language itself doesn't force you to be polite to anyone; at least, not in the way Russian grammar requires you to specify the subject's gender any time you use a verb in the past tense (but then, since you've admitted that you choose to ignore English article rules, I'm sure that wouldn't stop you either ). Still, it's not like actual Japanese people use language of varying politeness and formality in a completely arbitrary manner, manga characters' speech quirks notwithstanding. I guess it is technically possible to learn to understand Japanese of varying politeness levels without really understanding (or even acknowledging) the logic and meaning behind them, but to me that just feels like deliberately limiting yourself to incomplete understanding.

Comparing written language and primarily spoken language (敬語) like that is questionable. I think that your theory about familiarity is largely wrong, but basically strange, since you're trying to distinguish between interrelated things.

(2016-02-11, 4:23 pm)vonPeterhof Wrote: I guess it is technically possible to learn to understand Japanese of varying politeness levels without really understanding (or even acknowledging) the logic and meaning behind them, but to me that just feels like deliberately limiting yourself to incomplete understanding.

A person can definitely learn to function in Japanese without having a deep understanding of how politeness/humbling speech patterns work; there tons of foreigners in Japan that have lived there years that do exactly that. The thing is though, you can't ever claim to be at a native/high proficiency level if you don't understand how these work and the implied meanings that switching between different forms could give.

On the Japan Times article, I think the author at the very least did a good job of not sounding so pompous or egotistical as say Debito, but some of his points still kind of irk me.

This in particular:

Quote:But are these features belonging to the Japanese language, or are they traits of a Japanese personality?

It almost reads like author is treating the language as if its an entity in its own right -- completely divorced from the people that use it. Most of the natural languages spoken today did not evolve in a vacuum, they aren't programming languages. So things like politeness are very clearly things that evolved out of the Japanese zeitgeist.

Clearly anyone can choose not to use portions of a language that aren't required. Take English for example. English has probably one of the largest vocabularies of any language out there due to the assimilation of other languages. This allows speakers/writers to choose from a large range of words that can more accurately articulate what they mean. Many critics say that anyone that rolls out words using more than 3-4 syllables is probably only trying to sound sophisticated. This isn't that much different from someone choosing to what extent to use polite/humbling language in Japanese. An English speaker can just as easily choose not to use a SAT (college level) vocabulary word and instead go for something simpler, or a more drawn out explanation. It is still going to have an effect on how people view you though depending on the situation. Your lack of vocabulary could make people think you are uneducated and stupid; just as your lack of politeness in Japanese can make people think you aren't being respectful.

City dweller on ranch holiday: an American who lives in a city and takes holidays on a guest ranch in the West.


That's really offensive. I won't dare to say the D word ever again. Please teach me everything you know about japanese politeness levels.

(2016-02-11, 4:23 pm)vonPeterhof Wrote: Just to give a very clear counterexample to the idea that keigo is about familiarity and not politeness - open any article on the Japanese Wikipedia, or on any news website other than NHK. They are, by and large, written in "plain" language, and the only places where you'll find です's and ます's are the external bits aimed directly at the reader: notifications, disclaimers, apologies, etc. Now why would encyclopaedias and news outlets feel the need to present information to you in a way that suggests they're your close friend? Resources for learning Japanese tend not to emphasize this fact as strongly as those about Korean, but politeness and formality are two separate parameters. Official business correspondence is high in both of them, a friendly chat between two childhood friends of the same age is usually low in both, while everything else can vary. An academic article isn't addressed to anyone in particular, so it doesn't need to be polite to anyone, but the style needs to be formal if you want it to be taken seriously. On the other hand, a male school or college student hanging out after classes with fellow students from year groups above his (or those in the same group, but not particularly familiar to him yet) may want to stick to です and ます and use 僕 as a first person pronoun (less formal than 私, more polite than 俺).

Hmm, I don't really care about this rambling discussion all that much, but when I was in university I was taught that desu/masu was about distance ('distal politeness'), and that it is a whole different concept from keigo ('honorific' vs 'humble'). Distal politeness is for the most part about familiarity, whereas honorific language is about vertical position and distinguishing between in-group out-group. This way of thinking doesn't work perfectly, but it always suited me well enough.

(2016-02-11, 8:17 pm)Arino Wrote: City dweller on ranch holiday: an American who lives in a city and takes holidays on a guest ranch in the West.


That's really offensive. I won't dare to say the D word ever again. Please teach me everything you know about japanese politeness levels.

Ha. Actually 'Dude' really is a very offensive word in regions that have ranches.
I don't think it's used in that specific meaning anymore, but nonetheless, the 'cool guy' connotations have stuck in some areas, while the 'total dweeb' connotations have stuck in other areas. More and more though (at least on the coasts) it's just used to mean a male person like, 'That's a dude, not a chick!'

That leads to weird exchanges sometimes when people have different ideas of the word.

"What's up dude?" "WHAT! I'm not a DUDE!" "Uh.... I'm pretty sure you're not a chick..."

I've heard variations on that theme so many times when folks from the Great Plains states visit the coast.

Nothing wrong with the word dude IMHO. As a priest in the Church of the Latter Day Dude [the dudeists] I think I can speak with some authority on that. However that is just my opinion man.

http://dudeism.com/

(2016-02-11, 8:09 pm)vix86 Wrote: English has probably one of the largest vocabularies of any language out there due to the assimilation of other languages.

This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but since it's kind of off-topic here I'll keep this brief: Citation needed.

Tzadeck Wrote:Hmm, I don't really care about this rambling discussion all that much, but when I was in university I was taught that desu/masu was about distance ('distal politeness'), and that it is a whole different concept from keigo ('honorific' vs 'humble'). Distal politeness is for the most part about familiarity, whereas honorific language is about vertical position and distinguishing between in-group out-group. This way of thinking doesn't work perfectly, but it always suited me well enough.

This is also a valid framework for describing these phenomena, though perhaps one that also doesn't apply in all cases (the pairs あげる／くれる, 母（はは）／お母さん, etc. are also in-group out-group contrasts, but I don't think I've ever heard them described as being part of 敬語). I guess I should have been more clear what I meant by "keigo" in my first sentence, since I've heard it used in various ways. When I started out learning Japanese I also got the impression that です/ます wasn't part of 敬語 ('honorific' + 'humble'), but instead was something called 丁寧語. But then listening to fiction and to conversations between Japanese people I discovered that they often used the word 敬語 in a broader sense, basically as everything that isn't タメ口 (it's pretty common in anime that when a character suddenly says something with です/ます for no apparent reason another character will respond with "なぜ敬語？"). And then when I took courses in Japan last summer I heard yet another definition that contrasted です/ます with 丁寧語 (sadly I don't remember what it was exactly and I don't have the materials from the course with me right now). In the beginning of my previous post I basically used the second definition ("keigo"=all "politeness levels" above plain language) because that's what I'm used to the most.

(2016-02-11, 11:51 pm)Dudeist Wrote: Nothing wrong with the word dude IMHO. As a priest in the Church of the Latter Day Dude [the dudeists] I think I can speak with some authority on that. However that is just my opinion man.

http://dudeism.com/

Agreed. Nothing wrong with the word dude. I've actually been called out on how often I actually say it xD which is strange considering where I live.