# Formality in Society **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formality-in-society/511021 "2009-09-21T23:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formality-in-society/511021/21 "2009-09-22T18:51:20Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > When you were like a little eight-year-old, you called your teacher by his/her first name? I’m not sure I even knew their first names–their name was Mrs. Walsh, Miss Sweeney, etc. The only time I would use a first name, it was preceded by Sister! No, I started around high school. I didn’t, and don’t, have any chip on my shoulder about it. Around that time I became more comfortable with myself and interacted with my teachers more as people than as some authority figure I was shy around. I’ve never, then or now, been under the impression we were ‘friends’, but we talked with each other and enjoyed each others’ personalities and I wasn’t longer comfortable with the degree of inequality in the relationship that calling them by their last name suggested. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formality-in-society/511021/22 "2009-09-22T20:03:46Z")
What kind of high school did you go to? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formality-in-society/511021/23 "2009-09-22T20:35:07Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > What kind of high school did you go to? A below average to average public high school. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formality-in-society/511021.md?page=1)