forms of address

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 116754


Geoff wrote:
> It is very unusual for a woman in this situation to use only the 
> surname which makes Professor McGonagall's use of "Dumbledore" so 
> very strange - and almost claiming superiority over him. The only 
> instance I can recall of this type of address was a female teaching 
> colleague and she used the surname-only structure when speaking of a 
> third party, i.e. when the man involved was not present.
> 
> 
> Carol (earlier):
<snip> Among [British] schoolboys and male colleagues (in private
> > conversation), last names are the norm and first names indicate a
> > close friendship, is that correct? Or do last names denote enmity
> > ("Malfoy," for example) while anyone who's not an enemy (say Ernie
> > MacMillan) would be called by his first name? <snip>

> Geoff:
> <snip> 
> Even today, though, I notice in the boys' club at our church,
friends may use first names or nicknames in addressing each other -
sometimes softening the surname by using "Jonesy" for "Jones" - and
might use surnames only for folk they know as acquaintances but do not
count as close friends. I think with girls, there is more of the first 
> name/nickname pattern than surname.
> 
> But again, among adults nowadays in a work envirnoment, referring to 
> a person to their face just by their surname would be considered 
> brusque or rude.
> 
> The usage is of course flexible. If you were to compare forms of 
> address in, say, a poor rundown area with an office, you might well 
> get different patterns.
> 
> Hope this makes sense.

Carol again:
What I'm really trying to get at is the British schoolboy tradition.
In "David Copperfield," for example, the boys call each other
Copperfield and Traddles and Steerforth. This usage reflects real life
in early nineteenth-century England. Percy Shelley and his friend
Thomas Jefferson Hogg called each other Shelley and Hogg and continued
to do so for the rest of their lives. (Shelley's other friends
included Thomas Love Peacock, always called Peacock, and Thomas
Medwin, always called Medwin. Even Mary Shelley, Shelley's second
wife, called the men, including her husband, by their last names,
because that's how they had been introduced to her. Similarly, men of
the upper classes (gentry and aristocracy) in Jane Austen's novels,
for example the good friends Darcy and Bingley, call each other by
their last names. (In contrast, Elizabeth Bennet's parents call each
other "Mr. Bennet" and "Mrs. Bennet," as if they were neighbors rather
than a married couple.)

Today, possibly, this custom would seem strange, even in Muggle
Britain. Certainly in America, schoolboys and schoolgirls alike use
first names for their classmates and adults generally use first names
for their colleagues at work. (If someone were to address me by my
last name alone, I would be appalled at their rudeness, but then I'm
American and female.

But I'm wondering if maybe the WW, which tends to be conservative,
follows an older tradition, at least in the pureblood families. Draco
Malfoy seems to take being called by his last name for granted. I
don't know of any male students that he addresses by their first
names, even his friends Crabbe and Goyle. His father does the same
thing in the MoM, as I noted earlier, with the exception of Rabastan
and Rodolphus Lestrange. Snape may have been brought up in this same
tradition, in which case calling Lupin by his surname may not be as
rude and distancing as it seems. I can think of only one instance in
which he calls another adult by his first name, and that person,
surprisingly, is Igor Karkaroff. McGonagall, like Mary Shelley, seems
to be a woman who has somehow fallen into this conservative male
tradition, at least with regard to Dumbledore. Certainly she isn't
using the surname to appear rude. I think she feels that "Albus" is
too intimate, and maybe "Professor Dumbledore" is too formal for the
circumstances. As for "my dear Professor," which is what Dumbledore
calls her, isn't that also a male usage? Do British women address each
other as "my dear Minerva" or "my dear Molly"?

Carol, who despite appearances was not alive during the nineteenth century