using 'Miss' (in Israel)

[naama_gat at hotmail.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Wren wrote:
> 
> 
> > Where I live in the northeast, everyone uses first names.  
Teachers 
> are
> > called mostly by their first name, or occaisonally Mrs. or Mr. No 
> teachers
> > are ever called Miss. I think the rule is that if you are old 
> enough to want
> > to be formal, they figure you are married. Children call their 
> friends'
> > parents by their first names, always
> 
> I grew up in the Northeast, and my experience was very different.  
I 
> had very few friends whose parents wanted to be called by their 
first 
> names--none until I was in high school--and teachers were always 
> given their titles.  We called the unmarried women teachers Miss, 
the 
> married Mrs.
> 
> I am 32, so perhaps things have changed a lot.  
> 
> Amy Z

Here's how it is in Israel:

The only people that will call you Mr./Mz. (the female title is the 
same for married and unmarried women) would be sales persons or very 
formal bureaucrats. Everybody else (including children) would call 
you by first name. I know that there are places where it is customary
(well, was, I don't know how it is today) for children to call their 
teacher "teacher" and not use her/his first name. This was definitely 
not the custom in my school, though.
In almost any circumstance, when people ask what's your name, they 
expect to hear your first name. I cannot think of one case when 
anybody told me that his/her name is Mr/Mz X. Even a bank clerk would 
switch very quickly to your first name, once he/she has got it. 
This ingrained informality is probably the legacy of Israel's 
socialistic past. In fact, elderly people may sometimes still be 
heard addressing a stranger as "comrade" (in Hebrew, though, this 
also has the connotation of the British "mate", so its not so bad).

Naama