Do you, or any adults you know, expect to be addressed as "Mr." or "Mrs." by other adults?

In My Humble Opinion
61

After I graduated from college, my first job was as a salesman. While giving the sales pitch, we were under orders to get the mark’s customer’s first name and work it into the conversation as often as possible. If they think you are their friend, you can screw them out of more money. Since then, I have been suspicious of people who demand instant intimacy.

Most of my life, I have worked under managers who insisted on first names. I have gotten used to it, but I don’t really like it. I don’t want to be friends with the person who signs my paycheck, and can fire me on a whim. I am only mildly interested in their spouses and children, and I really don’t want to watch them get drunk at the Christmas party.

At a restaurant, the male servers call me “Sir”, and I call them “Sir”. That works. I like being on a first-name basis with the female servers, but that is because I want to have sex with them. I am fairly certain that they do not reciprocate the feeling.

62

Do you feel politically obligated to call people “thou” and “thee”? In English, we almost never use the familiar/singular. We nearly always use the formal/plural.

63

i always referred to my university professor/mentor as Dr. R____ (surname) . i did until the day she passed away. When i graduated (undergrad only), the next time i saw her at conference, she told me “Venus, you can call me K___ (first name). “ i freaked out privately and never got used to that.

Why does that happen, i wonder, the sudden permission to address someone differently?

i still call my closest friends’ parents Mr. or Mrs. or Ms./Miss. i’ve known them nearly 40 years, since i was 14. Some parents have told me it’s ok to use their first names, but none have insisted. Yet i simply feel more comfourtable using an honorific or whatever Mr./Mrs. are…

Is it because i’m Japanese-American, and it’s kind of built into the Japanese language/culture? They hardly ever use first names of non-Western people, ever.

By the way, these are questions to the community in general; i don’t expect you to answer!

[And to OP - i expect others to refer to me as Miss _____ (or ma’am). Isn’t it the polite thing to do? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ]

64

Ha. Funny guy.

65

May i call you Dr. Mrs. The Monarch?

66

i’d force everyone to call you Mr. Dzukhashvili just because. Sh*t i think i’m gonna change my own name to Dzukhashvila.

My late husband was Serbian so i feel you on the eastern European culture part. It’s difficult for me still to refer to gendered familial relations.

(Tangent: i kept my 4 syllable maiden name and hyphenated with his Serbian surname… so our DMV and hospitals now cut off my full name due to character count restrictions. But whatever.)

Thanks, Mr. Themapleleaf!

67

Interesting.

So…is an LLB a graduate degree in the Commonwealth? But more akin to a Master’s degree than a doctorate? (really asking)

68

I know what you’re talking about but your interpretation (assuming you don’t mean it tongue in cheek), is in my opinion anachronistic.

You’re right that originally the form “thou” was the equivalent of the “singular you” in other languages while “you” was both for addressing more than one person and for speaking formally / reverentially to someone, thus the equivalent of the “plural you” in many modern languages. During the 17th century, more and more people started addressing everyone with “you” (the common interpretation is that with the rise of the middle classes and with the movement of more people into cities, people were afraid of offending a stranger who might be their social equal or superior, and so used “you” just to be safe. Thus it may be correct to say that, from the 17th to the 18th century, the custom of addressing everyone using the plural arose. It is also correct to say that the English “you” operates in accordance with a plural grammatical structure.

However, that is no longer how the average English native speaker perceives the word “you”. People perceive it as a universal singular and plural form today. This is also evidenced by the fact that 1) we often need to use more complex forms to signify a plural form of second-person address (you all, y’all, you people, you guys) and that in fact some dialects have come up with new vernacular plurals (youse, yinz).

Also, modern English lacks the strictly coded greetings that often go with the plural / singular you in other languages. When we greet someone, we can say “Hi” / “Hello” and “Good bye” / “Bye”, and a bunch of other things and no one will really care, no matter who we’re addressing (yes, there are more formal forms like “Dear Mr. / Ms.”, but they’re used a lot less than before and certainly not every time we address an elder, boss, etc.) Whereas for example in Czech, it’s very important to use the right greeting when addressing someone (Czech etiquette is derived from Austro-Hungarian etiquette, which places the kind of importance on greetings that Anglo-Saxon etiquette places on saying “please” and making requests politely). If you are speaking to a person to whom you are supposed to speak using the plural “vy”, practically the only polite way to say Hello is “Dobrý den” (Good day – you may slur it to “Dobrej”). Using the friendly form “ahoj” or “nazdar”, or even the neither here-nor-there form “zdravím” (I greet) is considered insolent (how dare he think we’re familiar / friends!!!) There are also equivalent formal and informal good-bye forms. Modern English lacks that. No one will be particularly horrified if, on a typical North American city street, one man addresses another with “Hey, buddy!”

Thus I would argue that in English, “you” has undergone a semantic shift and is no longer a universal formal plural but a neutral universal singular and plural.

69

It’s a professional degree. That basically means that it leads to qualification to practice a specific learned profession (like teaching or medicine) and – certainly in Canada – is taken after one has completed an undergraduate degree in another field.

It’s not classified as a master’s degee – as I know, you can continue to do additional Master or Doctorate in law. But if you plan to just practice law and not do anything more with your law degree (e.g. teach), the LLB is enough and it may not be worth your time and expense to attain those additional degrees.

70

An LL.B, in Canada anyway, is the equivalent of an American J.D. Both require three years of study after a B.A. or B.Sc, such study to be done under the Langdellian system. That’s how it is done in all North American law schools (except the civil law schools in Quebec).

After that, the graduate with an LL.B. or a J.D. goes on to take bar courses and write the bar exams. In Canada, we also have an “articling year,” like an apprenticeship, during which we take the bar courses and write the bar exams, while working in a law office under the supervision of a fully-qualified lawyer.

Many Canadian law schools are re-labelling their law degrees as J.Ds. No difference in the course of study (still the Langdellian system used in the US), but clients nowadays seem to expect that their lawyer will have a J.D. instead of an LL.B. And some schools are offering their graduates who got LL.Bs the opportunity to trade them in for a J.D. And I mean trade them in: turn in your LL.B. diploma, and get a J.D. one in exchange.

My law school is one such, and has made that offer to me. I’ve declined, though I can take them up on the offer at any time. But I’ll stick with my LL.B. After all, it is the same as a J.D. in all but name.

71

The old Küss’ die Hand/Kezét csókolom level of formality. In my Hungarian class they told me it’s obsolete now.

72

Great info! Really appreciate it.

I see my post might have been taken to mean that Canadian law degrees are lesser than US law degrees. That was my mistake and I never thought such a thing to be the case. I fumbled how to express whether a law degree is a doctorate and, technically, lawyers could be referred to as doctors.

Again, I am sorry at any implication that law degrees other than those from US schools are in any way less worthy (given the state of how the law is applied in the US today, even by the Supreme Court, I am thinking Canada is doing it a lot better).

73

No reason to address a physician as “Dr.” outside of their professional capacity.

At the same time, as a patient I expect to be called "Mr. " by staff. It’s rude otherwise.

*Mild diversion: A doc Mrs. J. sees, takes frequent opportunity to refer to his Mayo Clinic residency training, of which he seems inordinately proud. While in the practice’s office escorting Mrs. J., I’ve had to restrain myself from singing out, in the fashion of a famous Harry Belafonte song, “May-o! Maaay-o!”

74

No probs. It’s a bit confusing.

Most Canadian law schools outside Quebec have gone to a JD, I think. It was partly because Canadian law grads who were interested in trying the US market were disadvantaged with an LL.B., because American law firms thought it was something less than a J.D.

That said, I’ve never heard of any lawyer who thinks they should be called “Dr.” My reaction would be “Dude, really?”

For one thing, it’s just the lowest law degree. The progression used to be quite sensible:

LL.B. => LL.M. => LL.D.

Then it was:

LL.B. => LL.M. => S.J.D.

Now it’s:

J.D. => LL.M. => S.J.D.

Like Spoons, one of my law schools has offered to cash in my LL.B. I’ve never been interested. I earned an LL.B., not a J.D. I’m not going to re-write my personal history.

75

I answer to anything and don’t know anyone who expects to be called Mr. I haven’t called anyone ‘sir’ since I left the military.

76

I generally don’t like being addressed at all, and I don’t know why. Just talk to me, you aren’t my friend because you say my name every other sentence.

But if you must use a name, my preference is FirstName only. Obviously for moments of confirming my identity my full name is likely to be used, or I expect people to use my name to get my attention, and have a preference for my first name in all such cases.

If you must use my last name, I prefer Ms. to Mrs. because my marital status has pretty much fuck-all to do with anything I’m likely talking to you about.

I strongly dislike Ma’am and have never had someone address me as Sir, and I’ll never use either to address anyone else. For addressing others, I’ll use first name or Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss/Mx whatever you indicate you prefer, just I prefer not having them used for me.

I’m just FirstName, please and thank you.

77

The problem with this is people who do not know you. Especially servers of whatever sort who have been trained to address people in a particular and “polite” way.

Will they feel your wrath?

78

Oh, not at all. A stranger can address me as Mrs Last name, ma’am please come this way, and I’ll internally cringe but smile and follow along.

A colleague, I’ll take a moment to just say “please call me FirstName, I prefer it, I’m not a very formal person…” or some joke about how “Mrs. last name is my mom”.

Some people communicate by saying your name constantly, and while it irritates me, I don’t think I’ve ever said anything and I doubt I ever will. I just don’t like it much but can’t really explain why. I know my own name, why are you repeating it, I guess?

If someone is writing something up and lists me as Mrs I’ll correct it to Ms and explain it’s my preference. I have never had any push back, must people just say “ok” or even “fair, I should have asked”.

How could I get mad at people about something they didn’t know about me? Heck, most of my colleagues mispronounce my last name and I let it slide. Still bugs me though.

79

I’m nobody’s Mrs… :rofl: You can call me whatever you want.

80

I’ve got judges who miscall my last name. Not much I can do about it.