Kendra, Joe, and Garrett Duggar: Part 11

[TheMustardCardigan]

I saw that picture on Instagram as well and felt the professional photography look means an announcement is coming soon. I also saw a post on reddit a week or so ago saying Kendra made a new board for pregnancy announcements on Pinterest recently. 

[CarrotCake]

3 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

I also have the hardest time in Germany knowing whether to address someone with formal or informal pronouns/verb tenses. You have to guess at age, formality of the situation, "properness" of the other person, and regional variation, and I have no natural feel for it as very informal native English speaker.  In German class (in the US) they said basically always use the formal with adults older than college age if you're meeting them for the first time, but in practice I'm very often addressed informally by people under 50 (I'm 36) outside of an office setting. 

I have the same problem. The company I work for is quite informal (and also Dutch so we are not using formal names anyway) but I work together with our German office as well as German clients quite a bit. I never get the hang of when I can use a first name and when I have to us Mr. For now, I use first names only with colleagues from the German office and Mr./Frau for clients.

[JesSky03]

My MIL and step MIL both have the same name and both go by the shortened version of that name. If I refer to my MIL by her shortened name my husband gets confused because he calls his mom "mom" and calls step mom "shortened name". So I always avoided saying my MIL's name as much as possible and if I was talking about her I'd refer to her as "husband's mom". I'm so glad that I can just call my husband's mom Granny now that we have a son. 

My own mom had decided to go by Me-Maw. I guess my 3 year old niece called her that one day and so my mom grabbed onto it fiercely. I asked my sister about it because it was so random and she said she wasn't the biggest fan but she didn't try to fight it since our mom had been previously trying to go by "Glamma". We took it as a win.

Family is weird. 

[SassyPants]

My ILs passed away in 2009 and 2010. At that point, the husband and I had been married >25 years. I had never addressed them as  anything to their faces, and for many, many years, I would refer to them as MR/Mrs  (or Nan  and Grand Dad if talking to the kids) when talking about them. Towards the end, I just called them by their first names. 

[viii]

Parents - Mom & Dad

Paternal Grandparents (now deceased): Nana & Grampie

Maternal Grandparents: Papa & Grandma 

I know it's a sign of immaturity, but I could never say Daddy with a straight face 

[Gobbles]

7 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

I have the same problem. The company I work for is quite informal (and also Dutch so we are not using formal names anyway) but I work together with our German office as well as German clients quite a bit. I never get the hang of when I can use a first name and when I have to us Mr. For now, I use first names only with colleagues from the German office and Mr./Frau for clients.

I recently wrote a work mail to a Dutch company and my colleague was like "just use her first name". It is so weird to get work mails with "Hi Gobbles" instead of the usual formal style. I used her first name but in writing I went by "Sie" instead of "Du". It feels so wrong writing like that. ?

My parents go by "Mama" and "Papa". Grandparents "Oma and Opa" and every other older relative it is "Tante XY/Onkel XY" (aunt/uncle) even if they are not my aunts/uncles. 

[dharmapunk]

10 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

 At the same time no one I know uses those „names“ for in laws (obviously Oma/Opa if you talk to children) when talking to them. They are seen as too personal. We just use first names. Calling an in law Mrs./Mr. X would be strange and indicate a very frosty relationship. Same goes for the names of your gf/bf parents or other close adults as neighbours or the parents of your best friend. And that is from a young age.

I think this has changed quite a bit in the last decades. When I grew up I called all my friends' parents  and our neighbours "Mr/Mrs.  Lastname" and used the more formal "Sie" to adress them. Same for my first boyfriend's parents.

Now my daughter's friends all call me by my first name. Even her primary school teacher goes by her first name. I actually found it difficult to teach my daughter about using "Sie" to adress adults because almost all the adults she interacts with prefer to be called by their first names.

[CarrotCake]

The only people I use ‘u’ for (like Sie in German) are people over 70 years old. In high school we also used it for teachers I think but I am not sure. 

Those are also the only people I use ‘meneer/mevrouw’ last name for. 

The rest is first names and ‘jij’ only.I could not imagine adressing collegueas by their last name, not even our CEO.

[MargaretElliott]

I agree, it has changed a lot in recent years. I call my boss, my boyfriend's parents, any people I'm emailing at work by their first name. I actually went to a high school where we called all of our teachers by their first names. Things are vastly more informal, and I for one can't imagine being called "Miss/Ms. Elliott" by anyone - even my grandmother was called by her first name by every non-family member she knew. So I've never referred to an adult by "Mr/Ms. Lastname" after middle school, and I can't imagine starting now. It just sounds stiff and overly formal. It hasn't gotten me in trouble yet, and hopefully I won't accidentally offend someone in the future. Language and society is so weird.

[Satan'sFortress]

My mom said she was so excited when she had a baby so that she could call her MIL "Grammy" instead of nothing.

I don't call my MIL anything. She signs cards as "Mom," but I just can't call her that.  We're not all that close. I'd prefer "Mrs. Lastname," but that seems cold. And yet, that is what Samantha did on Bewitched & nobody judged her.  Although Darrin called his MIL "Endora."  I think that he once asked for her last name, but Endora said he'd never be able to pronounce it.   How do I remember that?!  I'm a sad, sad, little woman.

[mollysmom]

13 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

Yeah I call my mother in law by her first name, it helps that she's a very informal person, but I grew up calling almost all adults other than teachers by their first names, so it doesn't feel weird to me.  At the college I went to all the professors were called by their first names too.  I think this is heavily regional within the US though---I grew up on the West Coast, but my dad is originally from Chicago, and I remember being absolutely shocked and kind of horrified at a family wedding there when I heard my cousin's bride address my aunt and uncle as Mr. and Mrs. Theologie. 

I also have the hardest time in Germany knowing whether to address someone with formal or informal pronouns/verb tenses. You have to guess at age, formality of the situation, "properness" of the other person, and regional variation, and I have no natural feel for it as very informal native English speaker.  In German class (in the US) they said basically always use the formal with adults older than college age if you're meeting them for the first time, but in practice I'm very often addressed informally by people under 50 (I'm 36) outside of an office setting. 

I didn't really think much about this until I read your post but I just recently got back in touch with my former youth pastor & his wife & I still find myself calling them Mr. & Mrs. so and so. It doesn't feel weird to me because that's what I've always known them as. It would feel disrespectful to me to call them by their first names. I'm pretty sure I'll call them that for the rest of my life. I do wonder, as you said, if it's a regional thing. (WNY here)

[SassyPantswithASideofClass]

4 hours ago, viii said:

Parents - Mom & Dad

Paternal Grandparents (now deceased): Nana & Grampie

Maternal Grandparents: Papa & Grandma 

I know it's a sign of immaturity, but I could never say Daddy with a straight face 

In my family its:

Parents: Mama and Papa

Paternal Grandparents: Grandma (she died in 2012) and Pop Pop

Maternal Grandparents: Grammie and Grampie

Now that I am a mom, munchkin calls my parents Gammy and Poppy.

[ElToro]

35 minutes ago, mollysmom said:

 I just recently got back in touch with my former youth pastor & his wife & I still find myself calling them Mr. & Mrs. so and so. 

A girl from my school ended up living with, and subsequently marrying, the French teacher. (Don't ask about my school-that's a whole can'o'worms)* I bumped into them about five years later in a bar where they were out for a drink with a bunch of her work colleagues. Imagine my mortification when I thoughtlessly said "Hello Karen! Hello Sir!" to them... I left before i had to witness her explaining why her friend was calling her husband "sir".

*As you can see, my school was, in many ways, formal (calling teachers sir, standing up when they came into a room etc.) and, in many other ways, VERY informal!!!

[nastyhobbitses]

One of my biggest "I'm really a grownup" moments was when I got "permission" to call adults I was not very familiar with by their first names. My friends' parents, my teachers, or pretty much any other adults not related to me were always Mr./Mrs./Ms., but then suddenly at around 19 I had professors who were always first-name basis (my Mandarin professors never were - they were always Surname Laoshi, which means Teacher), friends' parents wanted to be called by their first names, and adults introduced themselves to me by their first names.

Now my big can of worms is how to address Japanese counterparts in business. I know I can call my Japanese coworker by his first name and that's all fine, but for so long I didn't know whether to call an external Japanese person I worked with "Surname-San", "Surname-Sensei" (I'd seen my Japanese coworker calling her that on email), or "Firstname". Eventually I figured it was alright to call her "Firstname" because that was how she'd sign off her emails to me, but it was such a weird social minefield I'd never dealt with before. 

[InTheNameofRufus]

1 hour ago, mollysmom said:

I didn't really think much about this until I read your post but I just recently got back in touch with my former youth pastor & his wife & I still find myself calling them Mr. & Mrs. so and so. It doesn't feel weird to me because that's what I've always known them as. It would feel disrespectful to me to call them by their first names. I'm pretty sure I'll call them that for the rest of my life. I do wonder, as you said, if it's a regional thing. (WNY here)

I understand! I grew up calling my neighbors Mr & Mrs first name, other adults were Mr or Mrs Last name. I just saw my former neighbors about 2 weeks ago after not seeing them for many years, and I still called them Mr and mrs first name. I don’t know if it’s common around here or not (fellow WNYer), but I think it’s just something ingrained in me that will never change! 

[Jana814]

I still refer to my old classmates parents as Mr/Mrs/Dr last name. A once in a while client of mine is a classmates mother. She told I can call her by her first name but I just can’t. When she texts me she signs it by her first name but in my phone she is mrs last name. Where my mother used to work (our temple’s pre-school) they were called by their first names.  

[Bad Wolf]

@ElToroDid you go to my school? Two of our teachers had affairs with 6th form girls. The music teacher came back when the affair was over. The girl, of course, could not, because that's how it was in the 60s. ?

Adults in grand wolf's scout troop are always Mr. or Mrs. 

[AussieKrissy]

12 hours ago, TheMustardCardigan said:

I saw that picture on Instagram as well and felt the professional photography look means an announcement is coming soon. I also saw a post on reddit a week or so ago saying Kendra made a new board for pregnancy announcements on Pinterest recently. 

you and i thought the same thing. especially since we have only seen that pic as a profile pic (to my knowledge) and not anywhere else.

[SassyPants]

This talk reminds of the fact that Newt Gingrich married (#1) his high school Geometry teacher. They started dating when she was 25 and he 16. I had always heard that she was married at the time, but I can not find any info confirming that. 

[Vivi_music]

This discussions makes me think of the French ''vous'' VS ''tu''. ''Vouvoyez'' someone usually means a sign a respect (weither by age, social standing, etc.), but it varies a lot within French-speaking countries. I don't know what they teach in French class (as a foreign language), but I bet they would certainly install the ''vous'' out of respect instead of the ''tu'' - especially if the teacher is from France.

But habits, social norms, customs concerning ''vous'' VS. ''tu'', all can vary depending on where you are from, in what context you learned french, the crowd you are talking to and even the generation you were born in. That goes to show that what is written in textbooks is very different than what is the norm for native speakers. I know sometimes I ask myself which pronoun I should use, so I can certainly understand if non-native French speakers do too.

Usually, my own reflex is to ''vouvoyez'' someone who is significantly older than me and change if the person asks me to. I prefer to appear uber-polite at first and then lower my register and adjust after the person told me to. It was like that when I was in HS. We would call teachers by their first name if they asked. Other teachers liked the ''vous'' and I would never have dared calling them anything other than Monsieur ou Madame. It really all depends.

[OhNoNike]

Parents are British and when we grew up (in the US) all the neighbors were Aunt or Uncle Lastname.  I remember actually asking my mom when I was probably 8 if they were really my aunts and uncles.  Lol.

Related - the next door neighbors were very close to us and essentially grandparents.  Most of mine had died, but I had one grandfather and his second wife.  So since I had a granddad, I called Mrs Next door “Granny Firstname” and her husband “Uncle Lastname”.

She confessed when I had a kid of my own that she always worried what we’d think about that, lol.  Never dawned on me that Granny and Uncle being married would be super weird in the real world. 

[Karma]

2 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

Adults in grand wolf's scout troop are always Mr. or Mrs. 

DS was in scouts/cubs for 7 years and leaders were all called by their scout names, most of which were Australian animals.  I was very involved with the group and am still good friends with many of the leaders.  It’s four years since he left scouting but my phone still has wallaby, kooka, kanga, possum etc listed.  While I now call most of them their actual names, two of them are widely known by their scouting names and to me that’s who they’ll always be, not their identical, top 10 1960s names.

[Audrey2]

I'm 47 and, except for the adults in the church I grew up in, which I heard my parents refer to by their first names and it was understood that I would call them that too, the parents of my peers and older were still Mr. Soandso and Mrs. Thusandsuch. I met a close friend's parents when I was around 40, and still struggle with calling them by their first names- Mr. and Mrs. Lastname sound so much better, even though they've told me to call them by their first names. I was raised in Ohio.

I still call my teachers Mr. and Mrs., even though I've been out of high school almost 30 years. Boy, am I old!

[TZmom]

1 hour ago, Vivi_music said:

This discussions makes me think of the French ''vous'' VS ''tu''. ''Vouvoyez'' someone usually means a sign a respect (weither by age, social standing, etc.), but it varies a lot within French-speaking countries. I don't know what they teach in French class (as a foreign language), but I bet they would certainly install the ''vous'' out of respect instead of the ''tu'' - especially if the teacher is from France.

 

I have never come across "vouvoyez". I have taken tons of French (although not in 15 years) and even French immersion programs, but I have never heard this being used. Maybe because I mostly dealt with non-native French speakers, or maybe because my French immersion was Acadian French. Is this common in Quebec or France?

[viii]

Growing up in my cult I always had to refer to adul members as Brother John or Sister Jane. Now when I have the misfortune to run into them, I take great pleasure in calling them John/Jane because I know they hate it.