This has nothing to do with planning or semiotics or even anything but I just want to get something off my chest.
I hate it in Germany when people say to me that we are really lucky in English because we all say "Du" to each other. I should explain for those that don't know that German has two ways to address someone: Du which is the informal and generally only used for people you know very well or for children and Sie, which you use for people you don't know very well or don't want to be very intimate with. Along with having to conjugate the verb differently for either Du or Sie, strictly speaking you use someone's first name with Du and address them as Ms. Smith with Sie. So some clever people think that because in English we often use first names straight away, that we are all really informal and best buddies, on the Du level of intimacy.
Well, let me tell you here: We are not. There are a thousand ways in English to talk to someone and each one demonstrates more or less distance. Just because you call someone by their first name doesn't mean that you know them well, or even let's be honest here, even like them. An example: "Joan, would you please bring in the coffee now?" is more distant (IMHO) than "Joan, bring in the coffee, will you?" and so on.
I don't know why it annoys me so much but it might have something to do with the fact that I feel that people that make this mistake can't have understood English very well. They are making that classic mistake of translating a concept from their language into another language. I tend to just take a deep breath and smile when someone says this to me. So be warned, if I am heavy breathing around you!
PS. On this level, another tip for people who might meet me: Don't come up to me and say in bad, heavily accented English "Oh, you are English. I like to talk English." Well, I do too, but only to people whose English is as good as my German. And I don't like people who assume that because I am English, I don't speak German - Why?