[HN Gopher] WhatsApp risks losing its most loyal customers: Indi...
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       WhatsApp risks losing its most loyal customers: Indian uncles and
       aunties
        
       Author : gbseventeen3331
       Score  : 9 points
       Date   : 2021-01-20 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
        
       | legerdemain wrote:
       | Can someone explain the language phenomenon of referring to a set
       | of people as "uncles and aunties"? I've ubiquitously heard this
       | from expats and students from east Asian countries, and according
       | to this article it seems to be normal usage in India as well.
       | 
       | In Russian (and various other languages of Eastern Europe),
       | "uncle" and "aunt" can be used to address a stranger on the
       | street. It comes off as a bit intimate or even childish. It
       | doesn't suggest that the person you're addressing is related to
       | you. If you don't know the name to address someone by, it's less
       | brutish than the alternatives, "hey man" and "hey lady."
       | 
       | For example, in the greatest work of Russian literature ( _The
       | Twelve Chairs_ ), the main character enters the scene pursued by
       | a street urchin who keeps asking him, "Uncle, gimme ten cents!"
       | The urchin earns the immortal reply, perhaps the best-known line
       | in all of modern prose: "Maybe you also want the keys to the
       | apartment where the money is?"
       | 
       | But this "aunties" and "uncles" seems to be different. I get a
       | sense that it suggests a circle of doting busybody relatives who
       | dance around you all day to attend to your whims as the baby of
       | the family. Or something like that. What does it mean?
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | In some East Asian countries a close-ish friend of the mother
         | or father can have their children refer to that friend as uncle
         | so and so or auntie so and so.
        
         | nine_zeros wrote:
         | The best way to describe Indian "uncles" and "aunties" is that
         | they are collective nouns for anyone above your own generation
         | who are not your parents or ancestors.
         | 
         | They could be related to your parents or friends of your
         | parents or a random person on the street who is older. Kids
         | literally walk into mom-and-pop shops and address the
         | shopkeeper as uncle or aunty.
        
         | v64 wrote:
         | My reading of the phrase is that it's a colloquial way to refer
         | to groups of large multigenerational extended families.
        
         | netsharc wrote:
         | Don't all older people get the term in Russia, e.g. as a kid,
         | if your father's friend showed up, he'd say "Meet Uncle Vlad"?
        
           | legerdemain wrote:
           | Yes, this is what I meant when I wrote that it sounds
           | childish.
           | 
           | Adults calling other adults "uncle" in Russian sounds either
           | infantile or patronizing. Which is why I assume the Asian
           | usage norms are different.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-20 23:03 UTC)