Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticCat
Thanks for this. It's a reminder that the South isn't monolithic, even as to things like this. Around here, Mr. FN would, as I said, be limited mostly to friends of one's parents (or perhaps men in a particular setting, like church), and somewhere in the 13-15 year-old-range, the "Mr." part tends to get dropped. I don't think I've ever heard anyone address their in-laws that way -- people here tend to either simply use first names or something like "mom" and "dad." (That's what my parents did; their own parents were "Mother" and "Daddy.")
And I totally agree about "ma'am" and "sir."
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It took me a good 3 years before I could call my MIL by her FN. She had been encouraging it since I met her, but it felt really odd.
Funny story...
We have two sets of neighbors that moved here from the Pacific Northwest. The first set has been here for about 3 years and the other since July. The two families were friends prior to their moves.
We were all over at another neighbor’s, when the 5-y.o. of the first family came in. She went straight to the food table. The mom of the second family asked if she would like something to eat. The child replied, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Mary. May I please have a hotdog?” The woman’s eyes got as large as beach balls and proceeded to drop the serving spoon and her jaw. The child’s mom smiled proudly and said, “Yes, my daughter is now a ‘Belle’.” It was the funniest thing that I had seen in a long time.
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