in the presence of a superior. The superior, on the other hand, has the right to address the other person informally or formally, which is a personal preference. Customarily, the switch from to is initially proposed by the elder of the two people, the person with socially higher standing or by the lady to the gentleman. Alternatively, one person may use while they ask the other person if it is acceptable to be addressed informally, and then act accordingly. One way to propose the use of rather than is by stating one's first name (as in: ). One accepts the proposal by introducing one's own first name. Should a person later forget that they have adopted , it is polite to remind them by saying, (We moved on to terms). Sometimes switching back to is used as a method of distancing oneself from the addressee; the connotation is slightly ironic courtesy. The inappropriate and uninvited use of towards someone who would otherwise reasonably expect to be addressed as is considered to be condescending and disrespectful, although insistence on in an environment where is largely accepted (flat hierarchies) can be interpreted as being equally disrespectful. The degree of offense that might be taken will depend on how obvious the etiquette violation was (an example of an obvious violation would be a teenager in the street addressing an elderly stranger on the street with , addressing a senior manager with as a result of a misjudged professional relationship would probably be taken with less offense), and will also depend on the upbringing of the person in question—progressive vs. conservative outlooks and age are examples of factors which can play a role in how individuals prefer to be addressed and choose to address others. It has become the policy of some businesses for their employees to address customers with , often to set a progressive, "modern" tone, occasionally for other cultural reasons. IKEA, for instance, does this to reflect the widespread use of the form in Sweden (see ). In Germany, an old custom (called , drinking brotherhood) involves two friends formally sharing a bottle of wine or drinking a glass of beer together to celebrate their agreement to call one another rather than . This custom has also been adopted among the Swiss-French of the Jura, in Poland and Russia (called by its German name, spelled and respectively), though the custom in