I suppose it’s when we’re chatting together, it goes back and forth and we’re not necessarily making complete sentences… if you know what I mean… we often seem to speak in “shorthand”… 
We do too! Nothing like that shorthand between those you know well 
What text books in the 20s??
My French teacher was definitely from another world and another era … more like 1820 than 1920…
but she made the lessons fun and thus we all absorbed the knowledge more easily…
Sadly, I never had the chance to thank her for her hard work.
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‘On’ seems to come up a lot in Duolingo - I can only assume it’s normal recent language usage.
In English, saying ‘one might’ etc. seems entirely ordinary and normal.
OK if it’s tentative, but dodgy if it’s an assertion…
Ah, mais oui… Monsieur Titus was feared throughout the entire school. He didn’t encourage us to learn the language. Instead, he dared us to fail and suffer the consequences!
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I think we need to forget what might or might not be acceptable in English when considering how to speak French…
and simply “go with the flow” and learn from conversations with French friends and neighbours… 
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Madame Jackson used to wander around the school grounds on stilts… amazing lady, completely barmy I reckoned… but she taught me well and I sat and passed my French GCE after just 2 years learning…
Very intriguing! I’m sure some of us would like to know why? OTOH I realise you might be unable to answer that question. Nevertheless, was your school located in a particularly marshy area, or had her previous employment perhaps been with a circus?
Sunday afternoons she would often host a sort of garden-party… I was hopeless on the stilts, much better at croquet…
Sunday afternoons she would often host a sort of garden-party… I was hopeless on the stilts, much better at croquet…
Reads like something from Monty Python,
I do this in English - I call fellow members of my business networking group “Mr. Paul”, or “Miss Victoria”, or “Mr Ed”, even though I have known them for years.
It’s just a weird habit I have picked up, I don’t know where from. Some of them have started calling me “Mr. Chris” in return.
I am a troublemaker. 
I’m reasonably sure I heard regular use of ‘on’ during our last visit spending time with francophone neighbours - it’s a little hard to be certain, but I got a sense of understanding much more this time than at any stage previously. At least I can recognise some of the words used.
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‘On’ is completely usual to use and just means a general informal ‘we’.
On y va = let’s go or are we off then, that sort of thing.
On ne va pas se fâcher = let’s not get het up
A policeman feeling your collar might say on se calme meaning quieten down - so it can sound quite, um, directive.
Best not address people as madame first name, monsieur first name as it is unbelievably old fashioned and madame first name is how you address a brothel-keeper (well-known fact, obv, actually you see it in French films from the 30s to the 70s, often the equivalent of Ealing comedies) especially if you pronounce madame ‘mame’ and Monsieur '‘sieu’.
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But does it replace ‘tu’ or ‘vous’ @vero ? I still have my doubts from your examples.
The aides who visit my wife who I have managed to convert from Monsieur to David when addressing me, sometimes address me, laughingly, as Monsieur David indicating that we share the same sense of humour. In much the same way as I sometimes over emphasise the guturral rrr sound in my throat after one of them, jokingly, criticised my English way of pronouncing her colleague’s name of Perrine.
It is all very good natured and frankly a pleasing relief from the sometimes depressing effects of our situation. Sometimes they come in 2s and yesterday they had a student trainee along with them, making 3, and on top of that, Gill from the other organisation arrived making 4. 6 people crammed into our small house was a cause of much mirth especially when they corrected the newbie’s form of address to me. 
For no reason other than his sense of humour, our neighbour used to smilingly greet me with “Bonjour Madame La Comtesse” …
Especially funny as we were in the middle of building works and I’d often be wearing dusty overalls… and looking quite dingy…
He was a lovely man… greatly missed.
Well in practice yes, because you construct the sentence with “on” rather than “tu/vous”. I spent the first few years in France completely relying on it!
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You can’t use it for direct speech, if you do it’s a bit condescending (see example of policeman saying on se calme). Obviously if you are not a native speaker it’s different.
It is hard to avoid using tu/vous altogether, I imagine - but I’m not well-placed to judge really because it’s something ingrained from when we are tiny so I’ve never really had the problem.
I’d say as a rule of thumb the older the person the more likely to prefer vouvoiement. If you have a transactional relationship then vouvoiement.
Speaking entirely personally, I don’t like it at all if someone French I don’t know tutoies me eg in a shop or in the street. If they are foreign it bothers me much less.
But someone doing my job or an activity we share, or a little child, can tutoie me from the first time we meet without even asking and it won’t bother me.
Thank you @vero , that is exactly what I meant. 
And your policeman example reminds me of the way police in the USA, especially or maybe only in the South, would address Negros as ‘boy’, or as I heard a long time ago, police in Paris using ‘tu’ to Arabs or Africans in the banlieue.
As regards the foreigner use, I have never received a disapproving response from any French person, if I have accidentally wandered into ‘tu’ territory. Not even the slightest flicker of annoyance. Doesn’t mean I milk it though, but I do find it frustrating with people I have come to know and like. I don’t find it easy to ask someone if they agree to taking it to that level.
Job and activity too rings true with me. Most of my mistakes come because of early immersion in just that, lorry drivers, fellow dancers at ‘the dansants’, and petanque players. Lures you into a false view of the wider, French, world.