Re: Forms of personal address

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 2:18 PM, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> O tempora, O mores.........
That's only applicable if we're complaining.  I haven't heard any
complaints so far.  Did you mean to lodge one? :)
[re: "Mr/Miss Firstname"\
>  I think that must be a Southern thing.
I'm sure that's part of it.  I'm not sure what the parameters of its
extent are; growing up in middle Georgia I never encountered or used
it...

>  Admittedly I'm of a distant time, generation, and geography-- when I
> was a child, my friends' parents/relatives etc. were ALWAYS Mr./Mrs
>  Lastname.
You seem to be somewhere between my generation and my father's, but
the same is true for me.  The Mr/Miss Firstname thing is describing
curent patterns in my current locale, not my formative years...

>  Grade school teachers were almost all Miss Lastname (and they were
> misses; I think I had but two _Mrs._ XXX in all the years from K-9 (in
< public schools).

Almost all of my teachers were Mrs. Something.  A few Misses.

>  Likewise. I don't recall ever using (and only occasionally hearing) Uncle
> to refer to close but unrelated family friends.
We've encouraged our elder child to call one of our very good friends
"Uncle".  Of course, I feel he is somewhat deprived in the avuncular
department since I have no siblings and my wife has but one brother...

Growing up, I had one Aunt who was actually a Great Aunt, and another
who was actually a first cousin twice removed (my grandmother's
cousin).

>  Grandparents were always Gramma/Grampa Lastnames.
Same here.  But to our toddler, only my mother is Grandma; my
mother-in-law is called by her given name.  Despite my best efforts to
instill "Grandpa", my father is "Paw-paw"; my father-in-law is
"Poppy".

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>