On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Colin paddock <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> Context-sensitive naming practices. There's got to be a nugget of something there.

> So one might have a professional name used by subordinates,
>another name used among co-workers at the same level, and still
>another used by superiors, a name used among friends, another
>used when newly introduced in social situations, and yet another
>among family.

Not all that different than modern America.

You are allowed to first-name (or last-name, some places) your
subordinates and your (caste/employment) social inferiors, while when
addressing someone of higher status, you must use title + last name.

It is also an age marker; "children" must address non-family "adults"
by title + lastname, but adults are free to address children by first
name.

(This in particular was a Jim Crow issue to reiforce the social
superiority of whites and the inferiority of blacks; whites pretty
much automatically firstnamed blacks, but a black person firstnaming a
white person was an act of social rebellion in most contexts.
Firstnaming was permitted in some situations, but generally still had
to be prefixed with title, never directly by first name.)

Which is why all the store staff have name tags with their first name,
but management generally do not.

You as a customer are Mx. Smith, while the staff are Shawn and Pat.

Or the people on your work crew (or platoon) who are your approximate
social status are addressed by last name unless you are friends and
talking non-professionally, in which case it becomes acceptable to
address each other by first name.

Likewise the introduction of strangers in a professional environment,
where the introductions are title+ lastname.  If the senior permits
the junior to address the senior by firstname, the junior
automatically reciprocates, but if the junior encourages the senior to
address the junior by firstname, the senior need not reciprocate.

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan