[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: using 'Miss'

[Jen Faulkner]

On Wed, 23 May 2001, Amy Z wrote:

> 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. 

In my experience, things haven't changed.  I would never have considered
calling one of my friends' parents by their first name, either in
elementary school, high school, or college, and I can't recall offhand
being invited to do that, ever.  Now, people often do have to ask by
what last name to call someone's parent (since due to divorce,
remarriage, or what have you, parents and children often don't share the
same name), asking me for instance, "Is your mom Mrs./Ms. Faulkner," but
none of my friends have ever asked whether they could call my mother by
her first name.  (An exception is my best friend from elementary school
who called my mother by her first name once after getting engaged -- I
guess she considered herself a peer of my mother's then? -- which really
disturbed my mom, and I don't think she's done that again since.)

Even in college, I couldn't manage to call professors by their first
name, even when invited to do so, though I did call TAs by their first
names.  (I think it's kind of sweet in a way how some undergrads use
last names for TAs who are in some cases only a couple of years older 
than they are!)  Now that I'm in grad school, I'm finally doing the
first name thing for professors (since that's what everyone else
does).  But my high school Latin teacher, who invited me to call her by
her first name years ago, will always be "Ms. Farshtey" in my
mind; these things get stuck.  

--jen, babbling :)

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