- Mr
- Mrs
- Master
- Miss
- Ms
- Uncle
- Auntie
- Grandma
- Grandpa
- Grandfather
Do you use all of these - do you rebel against any of these?
on the radio a demographer said the honourific terms for grandparents were rapidly dying out as everyone says 'i'm too young to be called grandma'.
i had nan/grandpa on one side of the father, grandma/granddad on the other.
but none of my parents' siblings ever got the auntie/uncle - dunno why.
of course the Mrs/Miss vs Ms is a weird one - some people i know are completely revulsed by Mzzzzz - what does it mean, they say. they actually get quite angry when they fill in a form with Mrs and receive it back with Ms.
maybe it's nice to go from miss to ms, saying you're grown up now - in much the same way as boys go from master to mister at a certain age. it could just be about there being only two terms - much like German - either Frau or Herr (Fraülein - Miss - is dying out i think, and there's definitely no Herrlein!)
2 comments:
Sometimes when there is an open field for title on a form that doesn't matter, I give myself a title bump. It is fun to see which companies bother to check their online order addresses. Anna thinks it's hilarious when we receive parcels for "King Steve Boxwell" or "+ Stephen Cantuar"
Honourifics are huge in Chinese culture. I call all my friends' parents "Aunty" and "Uncle". I call my relatives by their titles.
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