You can call me "Betty"

[muckefuck]

So one of the more interesting observations during our post-reading criticism session yesterday (at least from a linguistic point of view) had to do with forms of address. Mazeppa made a serious effort to avoid anachronism, but something which struck one of the older women in the audience rather forcefully was that he had a child address an adult by her given name. I never watched much Bewitched, but according to those who had, even the child's mother and this woman (the show's Wacky Neighbour) never addressed each other by given names in its entire run. It was a deliberate choice on Mazeppa's part to show that the two characters were relating to each other as adults, but it was so jarring to those of a certain generation that they felt it needed to be addressed somehow in the script.

It gave me a bit of insight into just how radically bourgeois social codes have changed in a mere half a century. Back then, it was possible to be on quite cordial terms with someone without knowing their given name. Even spouses would refer to each other as "Mr" or "Mrs So-and-so" while addressing each other with terms of endearment. I wasn't alive while Dick York was still in the cast of Bewitched and I can't recall the given names of any of the adults at my first grade school, for instance (with the exception of the nuns, who we addressed by their names in religion); most likely, I never knew them. It was notable that my mother's friend Trish insisted we call her by her given name; at the time she was the only adult not related to me I can remember doing this with.

Today the situation is almost entirely reversed. There are dozens of guys in this city I know on sight and chat with in social situations. But I could only supply surnames for perhaps a third of them (generally the ones I know best, but not necessarily)--and that's only due to the constant reinforcement of Facebook. To disambiguate we end up having to resort to workarounds "You mean Big Tim or Longhaired Tim?" Because if you gave surnames, I'd simply shrug.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I suspect that there may also be regional and subcultural variations. I would never have called any of the adults at my elementary school by their first name-- my teachers were all Miss this and Mrs. that and, later, Mr. whatever. (In nursery school I was very proud of being able to distinguish Miss from Mrs.)

But my parents' friends were Ronnie and David, or Morty and Elise. (At this distance, I'm less sure about my friends' parents-- I think they were mostly still Mr/Mrs, unless they told me otherwise.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I don't remember any of my friends' parents ever telling me otherwise. Even into high school, they were still "Mr" and "Mrs". (Though in a conversation with Aaron Linn's countercultural California mom at graduation, I'm certain she would've insisted on given name.)

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Here in the south, it's kind of a hybrid (now - no idea what it was when I was growing up). From what I've seen, adults generally present themselves to kids as Miss/Mister Firstname (e.g., Miss Amy)...but actually, I'm not sure if that holds for men too...I think I remember my friend referring to her husband to kids as Mister Colin, though.