Minerva McGonagall-/Dumbledore

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115819


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister"
<gbannister10 at a...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "finwitch" <finwitch at y...> 
> wrote:
> > 
> > Geoff:
> >  
> > > Bearing in mind Dumbledore's insistence on calling folk by their 
> > > title, this seems to imply a measure of familiarity and
> > > informality 
> > > between them.
> > 
> > Finwitch:
> > 
> > I don't know what you mean by that? I seem to recall several times 
> > he asks people (who are not students) to call him Albus? He also 
> > tends to address people by their first names. That's how we find 
> > Moody's first name, BTW.
> 
> 
> Geoff:
> I seem to recall that most of the staff use his "Professor title". 
> Can you quote a specific instance of him /asking/ someone to call him 
> Albus?
> 
> 
> > Seriously Snapey Susan:
> > Similarly, while she calls him Albus the one time at PD, I don't
> > think "Dumbledore" indicates much familiarity, and the remainder of
> > the scene strikes me as markedly different from what we see 10 years
> > later.
>  
> 
> Geoff:
> Speaking as a teacher who taught during the period in which this is 
> set, I do believe that it indicates familiarity.
> 
> In my situation, the Head would either call us by "Mr. So-and-so" 
> or "Miss So-and-so" if the relationship was no more than professional 
> or by our Christian name if we knew each other better but it was 
> quite normal to refer to the head as "Mr.......". Very few people 
> would use his first name and it would be considered impolite to use 
> his surname without the "Mr." unless there was a very close 
> friendship.
> 
Carol responds:
What's interesting to me is the use of a last name alone by a woman to
address a man. If we look at the boys and men, first names seem to be
used primarily to indicate friendship or at least a close
acquaintance, last names to designate greater distance or even enmity.
Harry calls his fellow Gryffindors by their first names but Malfoy,
Crabbe, and Goyle by their last names, for example. And compare
Lupin's friendly "Severus" with Snape's more distant "Lupin." But
first names can also be used by men to indicate their superiority to a
person who is younger or socially inferior. I think Tom Riddle
addresses Hagrid as Rubeus in this way; poor Hagrid thinks he's being
friendly and addresses Riddle as "Tom" in return. And Dumbledore
addresses almost everybody, male or female, by their first names,
possibly to gently remind them of his authority but often out of a
rather paternal affection as well. We see this particularly with
McGonagall and Snape, but I think he addresses most of the other
teachers and staff members, with the exception of Hagrid, in the same
way: Poppy, Argus, etc.

But what about women and girls addressing men and boys by their last
names? Hermione uses Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle because her two best
friends, both boys, use those names. And McGonagall, at least in this
first chapter, calls Dumbledore "Dumbledore." But are there any other
examples, and isn't this usage rather unusual? It reminds me of
nineteenth-century women Englishwomen, both real and fictional, who
called their husbands by their last names. Mary Shelley addressing
Percy Shelley as "Shelley" comes to mind. I can't imagine my mother
addressing my father by his last name, yet in the case of the
Shelleys, there was no question of formality and, given the times,
very little inequality. I don't think that DD and McGonagall are on
anything like the intimate terms between a husband and wife, but her
use of "Dumbledore" may be some sort of compromise between "Professor
Dumbledore" and "Albus." I would, OTOH, be quite surprised if *he*
addressed *her* by her last name.

Carol, who, not being British, needs to look up "sherbet lemon" (which
I don't think means "lemon drop") before returning to the list