using 'Miss'

Jenny T. Malmiola zenonah at yahoo.com
Thu May 24 13:43:05 UTC 2001


I just have to get into this too. =) I live in Finland and here it's 
always "hey teacher!" We speak of teachers by their last names, and 
some really nice teachers get the honor to be referred by their first 
name. As if we wouldn't bother to remember teacher's first name if 
s/he's not particularly wonderful. Just 30 years ago however that 
would've been very offensive, back then it was always mr X and mrs Z.

I work in a school library (I have every article from papers about HP 
on the wall and few crosswords =))and being myself only 24 I don't 
feel myself that old comparing to these 13-17 year old students. So 
first it was quite odd they called me teacher, librarian or miss. Now 
I'm very fond of librarian and miss, a teacher I'm not. =) It's an 
international school, there's about 30 nationalities and languages, 
so general languages are finnish and english. Finnish students are 
like everywhere else, they come to me asking "Do you have...?" 
Foreign students asks "Excuse me miss, do you have..?" I like the 
latter and I hope some day to teach my kids to be polite too.

I had the fortune to be raised by my grandmother. Then I thought all 
that "Thank you miss" and opening doors to older people was so 
stupid. No one other did it. Now I can see how very lucky I was. All 
those smiles I get everyday. Of course I have found other polite 
people into my life during these years, but I still sometimes feel 
myself like an old granny complaining about those manners! =)

And parents are called "Lisa's mother and father" forever. We always 
refer to them "how are your parents?" "say hello to your 
Parents" "Her parents...something". Saying hello face to face we just 
say "Hello, how are you?". Older people do call friend's parents by 
their name, but that's because they all are atleast middle-aged and 
known eachothers for decades and have become friends too.

Jenny





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