forms of address

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 117308


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> 
> Carol:
> > > Do any Brits on the list, preferably male, recognize a schoolboy
> > > pattern carried into adulthood here, for the adult male
> > > characters--and for McGonagall?
> > > 
> > > Carol, with apologies for repeating previously expressed ideas 
but 
> > I'm still looking for responses from people with a British 
schoolboy
> > > background
> > 
> > Geoff:
> > Please, Miss, I fall into the above requested category!
> > 
> > :-)
> > 
> > To save me reposting what I have said before, may I just say that 
I 
> > think I covered a lot of this is messages 115863 and 116253 which 
I 
> > hopes had clarified the position.
> 
> My dear Geoff,
> (Is it proper for a woman to say that? Compare DD's "my dear
> Professor" to McGonagall. If not, please accept my apologies.) 


Geoff:
Well, usually when somebody says to me "My Dear Geoff", it's usually 
in a long-suffering tone, implying that I am being exceptionally 
thick or have said something improper. 

Similarly, when I was teaching, if I went into the school office and 
the school secretary greeted me with "Geoffrey...", my reaction was 
always "OK, what have I done this time?" Some people still do that, 
knowing what my reaction will be.....

:-)


Carol:
> I did read your posts carefully, but I don't see my questions 
> answered. I'm specifically comparing McGonagall to the nineteenth-
> century English schoolboys in the biographies and literature I 
> cited earlier (Percy Shelley is a real-life example, David 
> Copperfield a literary one) who called their close male friends 
> by their last names both during their schooldays and in their 
> later lives. Are you familiar with this pattern, in literature, at 
> least? Does McGonagall seem to be following it, at least in PS 
> chapter one? (I did read what you wrote about office relationships,
> etc. That's interesting, but it's the "schoolboy
> pattern carried into adulthood" that I'm asking about--not nicknames
> like those you mentioned, but last names for close friends.)


Geoff:
I think we may be talking a little at cross-purposes here. I've been 
looking at my own experiences from the 1950s up to present time. I 
think the situation was a bit different earlier. One of my favourite 
books - other than HP and LOTR(!) - is "To Serve Them all my Days" by 
R.F.Delderfield. I like it because it is about a schoolmaster, albeit 
in a public school, and it is also set on Exmoor where I now live. It 
chronicles the story of Davy, a young Welshman who is invalided out 
of the army in WW1 who comes to the school in 1918 and the story 
continues to 1940 when he has become the Headmaster. In it, the staff 
almost invariably call each other by their last names; the main 
exception is the Headmaster, who has helped Davy rehabilitate himself 
from his shell-shock and is on first name terms (from his side) 
because he is almost a father to our hero. Davy doesn't use his first 
name o his face until after he has retired.

There are some women teachers but they tend to refer to other 
colleagues as "Mr." except the odd occasion when they might just use 
the surname when referring to that person in their absence. The boys 
rely on surnames or nicknames. Delderfield paints a good picture of 
school life in those times and I think he correctly reflects the 
pattern for the 1920s and 1930s. 


Carol:
> Also, regarding Snape calling Lupin Lupin and Lupin calling Snape
> Severus: What's up with that? Is Snape distancing Lupin or just 
using
> the name he used in their schooldays? Is Lupin being polite or 
overly
> friendly or something else? I think you said that last names weren't
> appropriate between colleagues, but if that's what they used in 
their
> schoolboy days, why not?


Geoff:
My take on it is that Lupin is a gentler, more polite person; without 
looking it up, I'm not sure whether he uses staff first names 
regularly but he certainly seems to address pupils by theirs. Snape 
rarely uses anyone's first name.


Geoff
http://www.aspectsofexmoor.com