Like the US, Australia prides itself on its egalitarian nature and lack of class consciousness. And like the US, there is a lot of wishful thinking in this. We don’t have an aristocracy here, but class is alive and well here, and unless you’ve never felt a warm glow of superiority when watching the people on Jerry Springer, it’s alive and well in America too. If anything, the British are just a little more upfront about it.
Anyway, ‘Master’ is dying out here. I used to get cards addressed to ‘Master TheLoadedDog’ when I was small. I liked it, and I still do. I intend to keep it alive for my nephew (even if he does think his uncle is a silly old fool ).
I do not understand you here. The rule I thought was that everyone male under the age of 12 is addressed as ‘master’ rather than ‘mister’. How can there be any class divisions in that?
The people on Jerry got themselves on Jerry. The people in the House of Lords did nothing to attain their position in life. (Well, prior to the very recent shake-out.)
… you’ll get no argument from me there, but that’s not what I was getting at. I’m saying that class distinction is alive and well in countries like the USA and Australia, whether or not we have unelected old codgers in government. Our countries are not egalitarian utopias, and until they are, I don’t think we can dismiss the UK out of hand. That’s all.
I’ve always found this custom exceedingly bizarre, for exactly this reason. “Master” implies that you’re the boss. A six-year-old kid isn’t the master of anything, except for his GI Joe collection.
).