Who's "She"? The cat's mother?

[SimonMac]

Clearly this is wrong, but I wouldn't expect anyone from Yorkshire to know anything about etiquette, so your mistake is understandable.

Pray do tell how you see this as clearly wrong?

[Old Greg]

I was in a meeting last week with a couple of clientco septic co-workers and clientco's customer (i.e. just not a clientco internal meeting, but an important customer-facing job).

One of the septics has the (IMO) very rude habit of referring to people in the third person, when that person is sat right next to them.

e.g. "Well didn't he say that the project had to be completed by August?"
instead of "Well didn't John say ...."

As a child, if ever referring to a female in this way, would prompt another adult to retort and correct with "Who's she the Cat's Mother?" and like all well brought up kids I quickly learned that calling some "she" when they're right there is rude.

Question: is there a male equivalent of "Who's She? The cat's mother?" when referring to a male in the third person?

I'd like to send this Yank a linky to a page which explains why he's such a rude and socially inept douchebag, but try as I might, Google doesn't reveal an etiquette page which explains this.

So I may have to resort to simple explanation and mild abuse. Any suggestions?

'He' and 'John are both third person. It is the use of a pronoun that you object to, not the use of the third person. Anyway, I would object on the grounds that it depersonalises John. The fact that he is American helps in that you can appear to be helpful by advising that his no doubt straightforward intentions may be misconstrued as impolite within the context of British social norms. Or if it is MF, just kick him in the face.

[Platypus]

Who's he? The cat's father?

Clearly this is wrong, but I wouldn't expect anyone from Yorkshire to know anything about etiquette, so your mistake is understandable.

[SimonMac]

I was in a meeting last week with a couple of clientco septic co-workers and clientco's customer (i.e. just not a clientco internal meeting, but an important customer-facing job).

One of the septics has the (IMO) very rude habit of referring to people in the third person, when that person is sat right next to them.

e.g. "Well didn't he say that the project had to be completed by August?"
instead of "Well didn't John say ...."

As a child, if ever referring to a female in this way, would prompt another adult to retort and correct with "Who's she the Cat's Mother?" and like all well brought up kids I quickly learned that calling some "she" when they're right there is rude.

Question: is there a male equivalent of "Who's She? The cat's mother?" when referring to a male in the third person?

I'd like to send this Yank a linky to a page which explains why he's such a rude and socially inept douchebag, but try as I might, Google doesn't reveal an etiquette page which explains this.

So I may have to resort to simple explanation and mild abuse. Any suggestions?

Who's he? The cat's father?

Did you struggle in biology as the answer seemed quite simple to me

[Platypus]

I was in a meeting last week with a couple of clientco septic co-workers and clientco's customer (i.e. just not a clientco internal meeting, but an important customer-facing job).

One of the septics has the (IMO) very rude habit of referring to people in the third person, when that person is sat right next to them.

e.g. "Well didn't he say that the project had to be completed by August?"
instead of "Well didn't John say ...."

As a child, if ever referring to a female in this way, would prompt another adult to retort and correct with "Who's she the Cat's Mother?" and like all well brought up kids I quickly learned that calling some "she" when they're right there is rude.

Question: is there a male equivalent of "Who's She? The cat's mother?" when referring to a male in the third person?

I'd like to send this Yank a linky to a page which explains why he's such a rude and socially inept douchebag, but try as I might, Google doesn't reveal an etiquette page which explains this.

So I may have to resort to simple explanation and mild abuse. Any suggestions?