One of the most complex aspects of verbal interaction to master in a second language is the use of pronouns of address. In French for nursing students, pedagogical prescriptions favour the use of "vous" for interactions with patients; however, corpus linguistic studies have shown that "tu" is increasingly used in the French diaspora and is the preferred pronoun to address elders in Western Canada. To assess whether French L2 nursing students in Western Canada should align their speech with the textbook or the local norm, a verbal guise experiment with French-speaking senior patients (N=42) was conducted. Using a five-point Likert scale, participants rated a series of interactions in which French/English bilingual nurses addressed a senior patient using either "tu" or "vous." A series of Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests revealed that although the use of "vous" triggered the most positive reactions (p<0.05), the use of "tu" was appreciated by almost half of the participants. Discrepancy in preferences appeared motivated by a markedly different understanding of how respect and social distance ought to be displayed verbally in this clinical setting. The role of descriptive, textbook, and subjective norms in informing L2 pedagogy is discussed.