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'U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This' (nytimes.com)
Millennial college students have become far too casual when they talk with their professors, reads an opinion piece on The New York Times. Addressing professors by their first names and sending misspelled, informal emails with text abbreviations have become common practices (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; here's a syndicated source) among many students than educators would like, Molly Worthen, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill adds. From the article: Over the past decade or two, college students have become far more casual in their interactions with faculty members. My colleagues around the country grumble about students' sloppy emails and blithe informality. "When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I've got to say something," Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston said. Sociologists who surveyed undergraduate syllabuses from 2004 and 2010 found that in 2004, 14 percent addressed issues related to classroom etiquette; six years later, that number had more than doubled, to 33 percent. This phenomenon crosses socio-economic lines. My colleagues at Stanford gripe as much as the ones who teach at state schools, and students from more privileged backgrounds are often the worst offenders. [...] Insisting on traditional etiquette is also simply good pedagogy. It's a teacher's job to correct sloppy prose, whether in an essay or an email. And I suspect that most of the time, students who call faculty members by their first names and send slangy messages are not seeking a more casual rapport. They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them. Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it's the first step in treating students like adults.
The problem is, some teachers could almost be accused of "promoting" overly casual correspondence with the kids in an attempt to look "hip" and to "connect with" the students.
My son's sarcasm and lack of correctness took a nose dive the last year of elementary school, his teacher was a bad influence and encouraged sarcasm, and lack of respect for authorities. Something we've seen continue into middle school where we are confounded by the teachers there who seem to find my son's lack of respect for them amusing. (he doesn't understand why he can't come home and use the same lack of respect and sarcasm towards us that his teachers find amusing). I don't think some of these teachers realize the disservice they are doing the kids.
When they get a job in the real world, 9 times out of 10, their employers won't be impressed with sarcasm, lack of proper communication skills, and lack of respect.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Look to your left. Now look to your right. None of you are going to have jobs after you graduate, and you'll each be in debt for a couple of hundred grand. So it doesn't matter how you fucking address the fucking professor. You're still gonna be fucked.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is called courtesy, which even 'the help' deserve. Also respect, as your professor is no doubt superior to you in knowledge (or you made a really bad choice in who you decided to pay), and probably older than you as well. You are probably one of those obnoxious asses who snaps his fingers at waiters, just to show who is paying who.
You can call people with their first names without implying very close familiarity because you still have the option of using a formal second person singular pronoun ("vos" in Latin, "Sie" in German, "vous" in French, "vy" in Russian or Czech, etc.)
Ezekiel 23:20
English is a Germanic (which is the grouping for all languages dominantly descendant from Old Norse) language with strong Gaelic influences and minor inclusion of vocabulary from other language groups including Latin and Greek, but also including Cyrillic, Japanese, Chinese, aboriginal Australian, the whole range of 15th century American cultures, and a fair splattering from less widespread language groups.
English is a Germanic language, but neither it nor the Germanic languages in general descent from Old Norse. Rather, Old Norse is one of several Germanic languages, and more or less contemporary with Old English. Modern English has some indirect influence from Old Norse via the Vikings (and even more indirectly via the Normans), but both languages evolved from Proto-Germanic, English via West Germanic (with a lot of influence fron Northern Germanic), Old Norse more directly from Northern Germanic.
Stephan