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What Were Some Common Courtesies or Manners When You were Younger that are Less Common Today?
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It used to be the case (50’s and 60’s) that when you were introduced to someone you used their courtesy title and last name until such time as they invited you to use their first name. So, “Hey there Mr Jones.” then he says “Call me Frank.”
This. The presumptuous use of someone's first name when you've just met them and before you've been invited to, just bugs me. It's so disrespectful.
Eh, what is respectful is not set in stone. When my grandmother was my age she would have been lamenting how disrespectful it was that no one wears hats outside. That sounds silly to most of us, but to people born in the 20s walking outside without a hat was just as disrespectful to the people you encountered as using their first name without permission.
The difference being that the hat is simply a matter of fashion.
Calling someone by their first name when you've just met them and haven't been invited to, tries to force a familiarity/relationship that simply doesn't exist. That's rude no matter the era.
Yep, it’s the fake familiarity that’s the problem for me.
It wasn’t to someone born in the 1920’s though. You know wearing and then removing a hat was a big part of etiquette for years, it goes beyond fashion.
I don't dispute that. My point is that one practice of etiquette is an external, transient and changeable norm: fashion. With very few exceptions, we no longer have etiquette around hats because they've largely disappeared as an item of formal wear.
Fake familiarity is more than a matter of etiquette. It's something we are hardwired as primates to dislike. Even if you don't mind someone calling you by your first name, think about how you've felt when someone you just met uses it too much. It feels creepy and forced.
Or if someone you've never laid eyes on walks up to you and calls you by your first name. Your reaction is not going to be "what a rude barbarian" but "who the fuck is this person and how do they know my first name?!" You can justify someone knowing your last name ("maybe I know them professionally?") but not usually your first.
That's not a societal overlay. That's a gut reaction. It's visceral.
There were (are) societies where you never gave people your true name because it gave them power over you. There are many mythologies around this.
I don't feel the etiquette around fashion, place settings or other ephemeral things rises to that level.
My grandmother would have been highly offended to hear you say that a hat is just a matter of fashion. To her generation it was a mark of respect.
Because you and I were not raised to believe that a hat is a matter of respect, this former common courtesy seems quaint and outdated to us…just like insisting on using last names seems quaint and outdated to approximately GenX and younger (source: am a younger GenX not in the South who did struggle for a minute with what to ask my kids’ friends to call me, as here most parents want to be called First Name. I settled on telling my kids’ friends to call me First Name and having my children call their friends’ parents Ms or Mr First Name.)