Fun Stuff > CHATTER
What seemed weird when I visited your country
bhtooefr:
Teachers were almost always family name, instructors at the technical college I went to were sometimes given name, sometimes family name. (I'm going to try to use given/family name due to how different languages handle the ordering of them, and also trying to avoid hardcoding middle-endianness into my language (although personal names in Western languages are only middle-endian at a byte level, at least, unlike, say, American dates).)
Except for a strange phase I went through when I was like 6, I used "mom" and "dad".
And, I'm used to given name taking precedence, so someone may be introduced as John Doe, but I'd refer to him as John (and he'd refer to me as Eric), not Mr. Doe, typically, even in the professional contexts that I'm usually in.
Masterpiece:
My parents are still "Baba" and "Mama".
Oh man that reminds me of a thing my dad and I used to do. My dad works every weekday (Saturday included), and always came home at seven/eight. We live in an apartment building, so he'd ring the doorbell and I'd check on the speaker, saying "who is it?" and he'd say "Baba" but in a weird way, not emphasizing the last 'a' but the first one, making it sound like he said "Bob".
So when he comes up to the apartment door, I'd open and say "n'aber Bob" (what's up, Bob), to which he would reply "iyiyim, Joe" (I'm well, Joe). I think me asking might have sounded to him like a Turkish dub of a western or something, and it was a thing that was special to us two and I always looked forward to saying "n'aber Joe" every day...
god I miss my father.
LTK:
Funny story: My earliest babysitters were a husband and wife whom I was supposed to call aunt Agnes and uncle uh.. I forgot. They would reprimand me if I called them by their first name only, but I only did that once when I was feeling trollish.
I like how we have a word for "needlessly rebellious, provoking attitude" now that perfectly describes how I was feeling like eighteen years ago.
GarandMarine:
Baba is Russian for Grandma.
Barmymoo:
I find it weird to call non-relatives by relative-titles, but I know it's normal in some families so I guess it's just what you're used to. I have so many relatives that I really don't need to acquire extra honorary ones! Plus there are cultures (Akima, is this the case in China?) where using aunt or uncle is a sign of respect.
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