Am I allowed to get violent with the people calling me Mrs even though I'm not married?!
I didn't know you don't use titles at all. What an excellent way of doing things. I mean, the main titles denote gender and sometimes marital status, and why is it necessary to point those things out? The UK hasn't always had this system, and I do wonder how the change came about. A few centuries ago, the default title for women was "Mistress" and it didn't reveal marital status. We're used to the pattern of using a single name, with title if it's the surname, in this country, but there's no real reason why we have to apart from habit. I've been listening to Lindsey Davis' Falco novels (ancient Roman sleuthing), and it's interesting to note the patterns there. The narrator is Marcus Didius Falco. Some people call him Falco, those who know him a bit better call him Marcus Didius, and the ones who are very close call him Marcus (or Uncle Marcus). His partner just seems to be known by her first two names, Helena Justina to most people and Helena to the very close ones. Just as with Russian patronymics (incidentally, are those still used, or am I getting side-tracked by nineteenth century novels?), it's not really that unwieldy. We seem to be obsessed with shortening names in this country: how often do you run into someone called Elizabeth rather than Liz or Beth or what have you? I have no idea why.
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Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 02:40 pm (UTC)From:I didn't know you don't use titles at all. What an excellent way of doing things. I mean, the main titles denote gender and sometimes marital status, and why is it necessary to point those things out? The UK hasn't always had this system, and I do wonder how the change came about. A few centuries ago, the default title for women was "Mistress" and it didn't reveal marital status. We're used to the pattern of using a single name, with title if it's the surname, in this country, but there's no real reason why we have to apart from habit. I've been listening to Lindsey Davis' Falco novels (ancient Roman sleuthing), and it's interesting to note the patterns there. The narrator is Marcus Didius Falco. Some people call him Falco, those who know him a bit better call him Marcus Didius, and the ones who are very close call him Marcus (or Uncle Marcus). His partner just seems to be known by her first two names, Helena Justina to most people and Helena to the very close ones. Just as with Russian patronymics (incidentally, are those still used, or am I getting side-tracked by nineteenth century novels?), it's not really that unwieldy. We seem to be obsessed with shortening names in this country: how often do you run into someone called Elizabeth rather than Liz or Beth or what have you? I have no idea why.