Jetlag...adventures in the US...names

[Neil Ward]

Hi everyone,

I'm now back in the UK after two weeks in the United States, during which
time I visited six states and Canada with nary a pause for breath.
Unfortunately, two of the visits were only airport changeovers - in Toronto
and Washington, DC (Dulles) - and one was during a drive around Louisville,
Kentucky, when my dinner host drove over the Ohio river, so I could say I'd
been to Indiana. Still, I saw a fair chunk of the Mid West... and I loved
it.

I could go on for hours about my adventures, but I'll spare you that for
now.  I will say that the weather was hot, as you all said it would be, but
tolerably so.  I did have to dive into a Walgreen's on my first day in
Milwaukee to seek out Factor Gazillion sunblock, but that was the hottest
weather I encountered.  I also had excellent food everywhere I went, with
very few exceptions, but I was being entertained in a succession of
fine-dining restaurants and rarely left to seek out shady eateries on my
own, so that's not so hard to understand.  My host in Chicago decided not to
take me for a pizza because her work colleagues felt this would not be
appropriate.  In truth, I would love to have tucked into a massive deep pan
in the Windy City and rushed back here to start up that old pizza thread
again [hi Heather!], but no matter...

It's odd that you've all been talking about forms of address.  I really
noticed a change in the language when I moved on from St Louis to
Louisville.  In Kentucky, women of a certain age do seem to call their peers
"Miss Firstname," which I found rather cute, and some of the hotel staff
there called me "Mr Neil," which I found very odd (I was a complete
stranger, after all).  I also loved it when the hotel concierge referred to
her soon-to-be-married niece as "that little bitty lady".

At school, I recall that when the Boys' Grammar School (mine) merged with
the Girls' High School, some of the teachers would call the girls by their
first names and the boys by their surnames, following the traditions of old.
It took several years to change that.  Also, the teachers became Miss
Nicholls, Mr Seaton, Mr MacDougall et al, instead of Miss, Sir and....er,
Sir.

I call all my Aunts and Uncles by their Christian names now, but I was into
my 30s before I stopped calling them "Auntie Doodah" and "Uncle Whassisface"
(those names are made up  - I don't have relatives called that).  My
non-related Godparents, I call by their first names.  When I was small, I
remember that all my Nan's friends were called names like Mrs Riddle and Mrs
Liquorice (these names are real), not just to me, but to my Nan and between
themselves.  I'm sure Mrs Riddle had been called "Mrs Riddle" from the age
of three and probably said "Hello, Mrs Riddle" when she looked in a mirror:
she was the sort of woman who would wear all black clothes and a hat with a
bird on it.  But, I digress...

I know my German friends have to struggle with the issue of whether to be
familiar or formal with their elders or work colleages.  As a general rule,
it seems, they have to call their elders "Herr/Frau Dingsbums" unless
invited to do otherwise, and in the workplace first name terms are frowned
upon, other than between the youngest staff members.  Maybe that's changed,
but it did strike me as being more of a deal than it would be in the UK when
I first heard about it.

It's a good job I didn't ramble on about my trip to the US, eh?

Neil/Flying Ford Anglia

(scared to look at the clutch of Digests in his in box - feeling like a
newbie... can I have an Elf now please?)