USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES
Sir,-May a New Zealander thank E. H. McCormick for his irony,-and J. B. Hyatt for his defence of the..English system of addressing people. Changes in social customs in new British societies are inevitable, and some may be all for the better, but I don’t think this one is. The Englishman has three grades, "Mr.," the surname, and the Christian name, and I like the practice. He is very chary about admitting persons to the circle of: intimacy indicated by the Christian name. Here we are in a muddle..I have known a neighbour of mine well for some years, and like him. He still calls me "Mr. Cholmondeley" (not my real name), instead of "Cholmondeley." I dodge the issue when I speak to him face to face, but I have called him "Majoribanks" over the telephone (not his name, either). It is curious how the two forms of conversation differ, The position is becoming absurd and I’ll have to do something about it. » The freedom with which we use Christian names is also absurd. After the first war Punch satirised this movement in one of those innumerable jokes that have made it an incomparable mirror of social history. (I wish I could say the same of Punch today, with its thinwire outlines and truncated captions.) A bright young thing is introducing her boy friend to her old-fashioned mother. "This is Tibby, mother." "I’m very pleased to meet any friend of my. daughter’s, Mr.-er-." "Speak up, Tibby, you ass, I suppose you’ve got some sort of name!"+ Easy patter of Christian names is tiresome. It must be bad for discipline at times, and it cheapens what ought to be a genuine sign of intimacy. As Mrs. Snowden said of the eternal use of "Comrade" as a form of address in Russia, it ceases to have any real meaning.
NATIVE BORN
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530522.2.12.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 723, 22 May 1953, Page 5
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313USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 723, 22 May 1953, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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