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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