Manual keigo (マニュアル敬語?), is a controversial form of honorifics (keigo) in the Japanese language. Employers such as fast-food and convenience-store chains publish training manuals for employees, especially young part-timers who have little experience with honorifics. These manuals incorporate nonstandard formulas for servers and cashiers to use when addressing customers, most often by using alternate expression which are longer and vaguer than the standard expression. Manual keigo is opposed by language purists on the grounds that keigo has fixed, unchangeable grammatical constructions.
Other terms for the same phenomenon include "part-timer's (baito) keigo," "convenience-store keigo," and "family-restaurant keigo."
Famous quotes containing the word manual:
“Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)