affability
As affability is called the open, soulful and talkative, even jovial behavior of people who like to be at the center of a group.
history
In the older usage of the term " people " meant subordinates, for example on goods or in the military, or how the common people are called "little people". In this sense, affable could be a socially superior person who was friendly and generous towards his subordinates. The linguist Johann Christoph Adelung wrote in his grammatical-critical dictionary of High German dialect from 1793:
- “An affable person. Affable behavior. In a narrower and more common sense it is used only from this attitude of higher persons towards lower ones, who to a certain extent can be regarded as their people, that is, subordinates. "
Pierer's Universal Lexicon of 1857 describes affability as "philanthropy insofar as it expresses itself in dealings with people of different kinds, without special secondary consideration".
meaning
Depending on how it is used, the term can have a positive or negative meaning. An affable boss can be perceived as positive by his employees as long as the affability is not artificial or patronizing. Although affability used to be praise “from below” for kind superiors, the word “affability” also had a critical connotation when other squires or officers accused equals.
Charles VIII of France was nicknamed "the affable" ( l'Affable ). A literary example is provided by Theodor Fontane's ballad Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck in Havelland , the title character of which is affable.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.zeno.org/Adelung-1793/A/Leutselig?hl=leutselig
- ↑ affability . In: Heinrich August Pierer , Julius Löbe (Hrsg.): Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . 4th edition. tape 10 . Altenburg 1860, p. 321 ( zeno.org ).