Why this word is great
VOUVOY — [Verb] To address someone in French using the formal second-person pronoun *vous*. From French *vouvoyer*, from *vous* ("you, formal") + *-oyer* (verbal suffix). Unlike *tutoyer* (which dissolves barriers with the intimate *tu*) or the bland generality of *address* (which ignores the dance of deference), to *vouvoy* is to hold a conversation at arm’s length, to drape even warmth in the crisp linen of ceremony. It is the stiff-backed waiter refilling your wine, the professor correcting your thesis, or the estranged parent speaking to their grown child across a polished table—a performance of distance that, over time, becomes its own kind of intimacy.