Vouvoyer

[Guy] Bertrand said he should also have twigged when “Bouchard” – whom he has addressed using the familiar “tu” for years – started off the conversation using the formal “vous.” “I found myself saying, ‘Hello, Lucien, how is it going?’ and he ‘vouvoyered’ me and he had a bit of a haughty air. So I told myself that even though we know each other well, perhaps it’s better if we use vous.”

An outraged Parisian gave up skiing when his instructor addressed him as tu, while a fashionable personal trainer insists upon it because he would not feel right about vouvoyer-ing deltoids and abs.[…]Questioned on his use of tu and vous, a Paris doctor said he doesn't know why he addresses his daughter-in-law as vous and his son-in-law as tu or why he tutoyers his golf pro but vouvoyers his golf partners.

I had followed up the few leads I had and was invited to a couple of dinner parties, but after years of over-busy social life in London, I had become an awkward mute, knowing I was failing to understand the codes, the tutoyer-ing versus the vouvoyer'''-ing.

The lad is vouvoyer'''ing him, being well brought up: the state he’s in, he has hardly earned the formal mode.

In my view, vouvoyering is not enough. Far better to go on to monsieur et madame, which applies another diaphanous layer of style.