How do you define being a Snob!

When our DC were younger I used to clean for a lady, she was always known Mrs H and I was known as Mrs C but written on the christmas card she always gave me was my first name and she signed it with her first name !
I on the other hand never felt I could put her first name on a card from me to her. She was a lovely lady.
It was happy days working for her

Annika How lovely of your former employer sounds,I don't understand all the problems with the different types of work that people do every one has to earn a living and as long as collegues are polite it wouldn't bother me if I was called by my first name or not.I went through my working life with a wee bit of advice from my darling Grandpa,"Every job is Noble" and I have never gone wrong in remembering that bit of advice.

The mother of one of my sons school friends came to clean for me many years ago. I could hardly call her Mrs R, and she could hardly call me Mrs W. We were equals. I just happened to pay her for doing a job. Had she so wished, she could well have paid me to, for example, tutor one of her children.

The only person who doesn't call me by my first name is my child's class teacher and that's her choice. Everyone else from the Cubs I lead and DD's friends to my MP and MSP call me by my first name. Why would I object? It's my name. I can't think of anyone whose first name I don't use either, though I may add their surname if I speak of them to someone else, for clarity. That's what second names are for, isn't it? — to distinguish Jack the postman from Jack the cobbler and so forth.

It seems that some people do not like the 'closeness' of equality and prefer the 'distance' of formality. There are occasions when formality is useful, I suppose, but not in ordinary everyday life, at least not in my opinion. My relationship with Cubs, for instance, is not formal even though I have a certain authority in the role of Cub leader. Likewise when I was teaching.

BTW, those two Jacks are women.

When I worked for the Youth Service, there was an interesting difference in how I was called by the teenagers. The young women called me by my nick-name, and the young men, almost without exception, chose to shorten my surname and called me Mrs.B.
bagitha I think the young men were more comfortable with the bridge between the closeness of equality and the distance of formality........ which is a great way of explaining it.

bagitha,i find the use of the first name intrusive. it takes a person from a respectful distance into intimacy. that's why it feels inappropriate to me for anyone i don't know to use my first name.

i address my colleagues with the same formality i expect them to use towards me. i address pupils by their first names, usually but not always; 'mr awan' works well when i know the family but can't remember which sibling i have before me!

i don't equate informality with 'equality'. rather the opposite. only a person who presumed superior rank or status would use the first name without invitation.

This is surely a cultural matter - I have had people I regarded as friends in France who would not use my first name or address me as 'tu'. In contrast, a man friend went to work in the USA and was mortified to be put down sharply by his boss for being over-familiar - he had assumed that the informality of using his first name implied the same level of relationship that he had found in England. And, of course, there are tribes where your forename can be used against you in witchcraft!

I have worked with hundreds of teachers and only one insisted on being called by his surname in the staff room - he was a man in his 50s who had never been promoted in nearly 30 years of teaching and we all felt he needed to shore up his self-esteem by being addressed in this way.
I didn't let my pupils use my first name but I used their first names rather than just their surnames, which I found an unpleasant way of addressing the boys.

When my daughters were teenagers their boy friends addressed me as 'Mrs B' but their girl friends used my forename. Later, I became 'NanaC' (my forename).
I find it amusing that men who have attended public schools go on referring to each other as 'Smith' or 'Jones', no matter what their degree of intimacy.

I can understand why old people object to being addressed by their forename by young carers,nurses, etc. unless they have been asked if they mind. It seems that it often goes alongside a patronising assumption that all old people have reverted to childhood.

Gbun and butty, I hope what I want to say applies to both! I found both your replies interesting, in part because they illustrate how different people feel about formality and what it means, how it is perceived, and so on. Perhaps there is something about me that just invites people to use my first name? On initial introduction, my surname is often used, but it doesn't last. I don't think that's any sign of disrespect towards me, but rather my lack of feeling superior or inferior to anyone whether their 'station' is traditionally thought to be below me or above me. It's not a simple lack. I've worked on it. I refuse to feel inferior or superior to anyone because, for me, feeling either of those things is the definition of being a snob, which I don't want to be. Most of my relationships with people are about exchanges of knowledge and experience. There are inequalities, obviously, but only as the result of the accidents of birth, education and experience. As far as relating to other people on a personal level goes, we're all equals in my view.

The end result is that it doesn't bother me one jot which way people choose to address me, so long as they are polite. I don't regard the use of my given name by anyone to be impolite. It seems some people do mind being called by their first name. So be it, but I'm glad I don't. Something else I don't need to worry about. Shrug.

I think my attitude started at my parents' home. We knew our parents' colleagues by their first names. My university lecturers and tutors all asked to be called by their first names and so on. It's just what I've always done. Why should I expect anything different from anyone else?

I found a difference between the tutors at Teacher Training College, who usually wanted to be called by their surname, especially if they had a doctorate, and my university lecturers, who were nearly all happy to use forenames. A question of self confidence?

I'm beginning to wonder if that's what it is too, greatnan. Use of my first name does not intrude into my life. It's just who I am. The surname is just by the way, a bit of punctuation, if you like.

Oh Baggy that has made me think. I have often felt inferior to others but I like your view that it is snobbery. You are, in my opinion, a very wise woman.

I had good teachers, chrissy, at home, at school, at uni, at work, at my hobbies. My kids taught me a lot too.

What I enjoyed most about the young men calling me Ms. B. was their bounciness and cheekiness in doing so. Now I think about it, I didn't always get the same impression from the young women. For me it's about the sense of affection I feel I am receiving from being called whatever - not the name itself.........if that all makes sense.
Closer to home, I've always really enjoyed your nick-name for me bagitha, and am aware I've never shortened yours to bags, simply because, for me, it expresses my affection for you.

nanaChrissy - yes, she is! I have always known that there were areas where other people were much more proficient or learned than myself, but I have my own areas of expertise so I am always happy to acknowledge the superiority of others in certain subjects (cooking, botany, astronomy, engineering, IT, needlework....etc etc etc...) This never makes me feel they are superior human beings, and similarly I never think anyone is inferior to me if they don't share my skills in certain subjects. I grew up in a working class family in the back streets of Salford and I retain a faint Salford accent, which is not very attractive but is part of me. I used to be mildly annoyed when some Sloaney airhead tried to patronise me but I learned just to shrug it off. I felt I had achieved more than they had without help from anybody except the wonderful free higher education system which was available to me as a mature student in 1967. (How much harder it would be for me now).
I have always been very self-confident, which I attribute partly to nature and partly to nurture - my mother, siblings and teachers always lavished praise on me - but overweaning self-confidence is not necessarily an attractive trait! Events have taught me my own limitations - I am a sadder but more self-knowing person.

Badly written - calling you bagitha expresses my affection..............!

I always wanted a nickname at school but I was not sufficiently popular!

I've always been very shy and lacking in self-confidence,which I cover by making people laugh. My mother's mantra to me was you are as good as anyone else, if not better,which I do try to remember!

Being an inverted snob is not good!

nanac - and try to believe, I hope!

bags (also shows affection!), I agree with every word you say. It took me many years to acknowledge that I was as good as the next woman - or man. My ex tried every trick in the book to dent my self-esteem and, to an extent, he succeeded. Being on my own and 'doing my own thing' was the making of a different persona. My identity does not depend on what other people call me.

I do agree with you granbunny, I get upset for older people when I hear carer/nurse calling them by their first name. A little respect please. Greatnan use of surnames at school works, my son's school operated this system and it saves confusion. Five Benjamins, three Tarquins etc, so much easier to be Smythe, Beauchamp and so on. Okay brothers in the same school then became Smythe major and minor.

What I do object to is one person expecting to be called "Mrs X" while addressing the other by their first name (between adults of course). Different if both parties address each other as Mrs X or Mr Y. The days of "Upstairs Downstairs" have long gone I hope?

harrigan, I had to smile at your choice of names! We didn't get too many Tarquins or Beauchamps in the bottom streams of my inner-city comps on Merseyside! I knew all my pupils extremely well, including many details of their home background and they knew exactly whom I meant. First names worked for me.

What I hate is when someone calls me Mrs X and then refers to themselves by their first names. So, the kitchen fitter will say, hello Mrs X, it's Barry. No matter how often DH and me refer to each other by our first names, fitter insists on Mr and Mrs.

What's that all about?