Re: Brothers-in-law-in-law

Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote...
Jonathan Morton wrote:


I'm not sure if we've ever mentioned here the use of "Uncle [or Aunt] So-and-so" by children to refer to and address good friends of their parents. I suspect that my generation (b. 1950s) was the last to use it, and that it was a British (and possibly English) thing.

I think we have mentioned it previously, but there's no harm in re-mentioning it. I was born in England in the 1930s and was familiar with the style. My parents were Australian. I don't know whether they already knew this usage or adopted it after arrival.

I think the point of this usage was that children could refer to an adult friend of their parents without the over-informality (by the standards of the time) of using just the given name[1] or the over-formality of "Miss/Mrs/Mr/Dr/Professor Surname".

I hadn't realized that the practice had died out. Uncles and aunts were the only grown-ups whose Christian names I knew; I didn't discover what my grandparents' Christian names were until last year. I remember being roundly told off at a contemporary's 21st birthday party in 1967 for calling his father by his Christian name alone: "I'm Uncle John to you until I invite you to drop the 'Uncle'."

Don't men still call each other sometimes by surname alone nowadays? I do, and I haven't noticed any objection. I also call my seniors 'Sir' and, I suppose, rather expect my juniors to call me the same, but it doesn't happen often.

[1] We would always have called it the "Christian name".

Any reason to call it anything else if it is?
--
Noel

.

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