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kalysti t1_itilxkx wrote

It was the way people of certain classes talked to each other.

Communication was much more formal back then, generally speaking. No child would speak to an adult without calling them ma'am or sir. No child would ever use an adult's first name. And adults who didn't have a close relationship would not call each other by their first names, unless one of them had a higher social status. Higher status people could use lower status peoples' first names.

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foxdna OP t1_itim6ri wrote

Ohhh that makes sense. And it wasn’t just a European thing?

Do you love the book?

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kalysti t1_itisbox wrote

I do love the book. And it was true in the United States. Even when I was a girl, back in the 60s, I was expected to address adults as sir or ma'am. And I only used their first names if they gave me permission.

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IHadToPickOne2 t1_itkds9u wrote

We would only use their first name with a title before it, such as "Miss Alice".

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kalysti t1_itkdw21 wrote

Yep, and all of my adult relatives got the appropriate title. Aunt Ann, Uncle Andy. To this day, many of my own niblings call me Aunt kalysti.

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Kataphractoi t1_itjqts7 wrote

It's still a thing today in America. Less so since we're much more informal as a culture now, but if you go to an older/more conservative company, you'll see this at play. Also in the military it's pretty common for senior ranks to refer to junior ranks by first name and only use rank/last name in formal scenarios or if someone's getting an ass-chewing.

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Glitz-1958 t1_itjqlhx wrote

Times have changed. As a child in 1960s England first names were not so common. I would never have dreamed of usung an adult's first name without a courtesy Auntie, first and at work it was a very modern thing to be on first name terms with someone senior at work. I remember there being an article about it on the news.

When we visited the US when my children were young they had to use the word Miss before an adult's first name.

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