Re: CHAT: "Mister" (WAS: Re: New Lang: Igassik)

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Roger Mills wrote:

> high-school students would DREAM of using first names with an instructor, so
> likely this is just a carry-over into college, where there is still a
> tendency for students to have (grudging) respect for their teachers, even
> lowly TAs :-).....Probably by senior year, and certainly in graduate
> courses, its all first names, except maybe with very senior faculty.  Even
> so, as I recall at Michigan, Pike's students called him Ken, but William
> Gedney (in Thai linguistics, and possibly even older than Pike) was NEVER
> Bill, but Prof. or Mr.
> So it depends.....
>
> Rant dept:  Sometimes we carry this firstname stuff too far.  I resent being
> addressed as Roger by bank tellers, telemarketers and others of that ilk
> with whom I have no other social interaction.  Probably the only facet of my
> personality that can be called conservative.  End rant.
<rueful look>  I remember one math prof asked us to call him "Dani"
(short for "Daniel") but I could never bring myself to do it--I just
called him "Professor."  And when I returned to visit my HS after
graduation some of the teachers were completely okay with going to
first-name basis but I couldn't bring myself to do it then, either!  The
only "older" scholarly people I'm comfortable addressing by first name are
grad students and TA's.

YHL