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Welcome to the A to Z English podcast.
My name is Jack and I'm here with my co -host Sochal.
And today we have a new kind of episode that we like to call the culture corner.
And Sochal, today's question comes from one of our listeners.
And our listener, this is Najd asking.
Najd is from Iraq. And she says she asks, what do the majority of people in America prefer to be called?
So when we talked about this episode earlier today, you separated it into two really interesting categories.
I think peers and authority figures.
Is that what you said?
Yes, that's what I said.
OK, OK. So I like that because I think that that's a really good way to to kind of picture the situation in America.
And so how would you let's start with peers first.
What do peers prefer to be called?
Peers are usually referred to informally and you talk to them by their name.
Right. So peers refers to also someone on your same level hierarchically.
So if we're talking about, for example, your classmates in school, college, elementary school, whatever, those are your peers.
If you're at a job, everyone who's in your same station as you, like anyone who is your colleague and isn't above you hierarchically, those are your peers.
In a family setting, even, your brothers and sisters are really your peers and the parents are basically the authority or any older adults are basically authority.
Right. right and now what about our case like i'm 47 you're 26 or did you turn 27 i can't remember i turned 27 you turned 27 so okay so i've got 20 years in you but i still think of you as like a peer because we're both podcasters we're partners in this in our business and so even though there's a 20
year uh 20 year gap i i don't know about you but if you started calling me mr mcbain that would be really weird.
You know what I mean?
So awkward. And that brings to a really important point, which is sometimes if you start out formally, Jack was talking about, it's important to start formally because it's, you're unlikely to offend someone, you might make it a little awkward, but if you start formally, you're unlikely to offend someone.
They'll just correct you to speak to them more informally.
And so if I started calling Jack Mr.
McBain now, if you insist, once a person has told you to drop formalities, you can actually make the situation way more uncomfortable than you would have just following what they prefer and just being informal right i would say like a lot of people that are you know so let's let's go to like authority
figures right so and so it doesn't matter the age it's more about the like situation like so social and i are we're both podcasting partners in this business so so she and i use our names i call her social she calls me jack but let's say um let's say you go to university and you meet your professor for the first
time, you know, at the beginning of the semester, like you said, you're always going to start with the formal, right?
You're going to say, Professor Smith.
Yeah, Professor Johnson or Professor Smith or whatever.
And then if the professor says, no, no, don't call me Professor Johnson, call me Deborah or Debbie, then you have to switch to informal and call her Debbie from now on.
Don't use the formal because she already asked you not to use the formal.
But I would say if she doesn't say that, if she says, you know, if you say, good morning, Professor Johnson, and she says, good morning, Jack, or good morning, social, then I would always use Professor Johnson in that case, because she never asked me to use the informal.
So I'm going to assume she wants me to use the formal and then just continue that out.
In authority, like in situations where you're addressing a person of authority, the default is always the formality.
so you only default to or assume talking to someone in a formal way and then of course you can change it later and in most settings people will tell you how they want to be addressed in the us we do tend to be like a little more direct in those ways um and like for example when i was in college our
professors would usually let us know how they wanted to be addressed so if they wanted to be addressed as professor so and so then that was fine but if they wanted to be addressed by their first names they would also let us know that as well so it was never really a guessing game like what should i
call this person or not ladies and gentlemen we are now boarding group a please have your boarding passes ready to scan if your phone is cracked old or was chewed up by your chihuahua travel companion please refrain from holding up the line instead go to verizon and trade in any phone in any condition from one
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match download the redfin app and start searching today um like friends parents i would i always use the formal i would say like my friend's name is uh is uh you know uh joe johnson i would say to his parents um hello mrs johnson hello mr johnson like that's what i would say i wouldn't I wouldn't just
be like hey Mitch hey Barbara you know like that because it's too it's too comfortable like you don't know them you're not close enough to them but if they tell you call me Barbara call me Mitch then you can you can do it so yeah I don't know is it is this easy or is this complicated I think it can be
a little complicated I think the most important thing to remember is that if it's your peers you can be informal if it's authority you should be formal yeah at least at first and then if the authority figure wants to you to talk more informally then that's fine and another important thing to remember
is um if you're unsure I guess if the person is your peer or an authority figure like if you're co -workers but you don't know if the person has a higher station than you like maybe they're not quite the boss but maybe they're a manager or something then just start out with talking to them formally yes
and they'll correct you if they want to i i love it i mean i think these are these are really good rules right peers informal um authority figures start formally and then until they ask you to to to be informal and if you don't know don't guess just always go formal because it's better to be too formal
than to be too informal so i think those are the three rules if you can follow those three rules you'll be you'll be fine in in america in the united states do you have a couple little things to add one is it depends how casual or formal the setting is like if you're in a workplace or at school, these
are formal settings.
So again, like you want to follow the rules we just established.
But if it's a more casual setting, kind of like the podcast, like Jack and I kind of met in a casual way, and the podcast is more casual, like the age difference doesn't really matter in that context.
And then the last thing that I wanted to say is if you're talking to a random stranger, like say someone drops your wallet, sir or ma 'am is a perfectly fine way to address someone.
You're like, oh, excuse me, sir, you dropped your wallet or excuse me, ma 'am, you dropped your wallet.
And if the person is a younger person or someone like in their 20s or maybe early 30s, you can say miss or like young man for example as well yeah and and it yeah i think that's really good and even if that's too much to remember just sir and ma 'am is is is okay yeah that's okay even even for younger
people you say sir you know yeah um we'll call me ma 'am and i find it like weird sometimes they've called me ma 'am since i was a kid like people people even in american culture we default to sir and ma 'am for everyone at times um so it should be fine i've been called sir when i was young too you know
and it feels weird you kind of it feels like you're it feels bigger than than me than i am you know what i mean like someone's using a title that's much larger than my my status um but uh you know but but it's still effective you know if they don't know your name they say sir yeah right so i hope that answer
your answer answers your question i'm getting tongue tied there um listeners if you have any other questions make sure to leave us a comment down below at a to z english podcast .com shoot us an email at a to z english podcast .gmail .com and join our whatsapp or wechat groups to join the conversation and we'll see
you guys next time on another episode of culture chat bye bye Bye -bye.
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