Human Studies 12: 349-350, 1989. © 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Extract Eight 1 Doing Things With Names

The question of whether Negroes can be addressed as they are addressed in the South, in courtrooms, has been the subject of a recent Supreme Court decision. The exchange is as follows:

Question: Mary, I believe you were arrested. Who were you arrested by?

Answer: My name is Miss Hamilton. Please address me correctly.

Question: Who were you arrested by, Mary?

Answer: I will not answer a question until I am addressed correctly.

She was immediately charged with contempt, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court which reversed the contempt decision, holding that a Negro has a right to be addressed by their titled name, Miss or Mister, or

something else. Various kinds of things can be done, clearly, with these titles. This is

from the New York Times.

The feelings of President DeGaulle about American 'domination' of France or Europe are well known and he displayed them in a characteris- tic way the other day. The background of the incident was the takeover by the Chrysler Corporation of the majority of shares in the French Simca automobile firm, an act that greatly displeased the French government.

At a reception in the President's Elysee Palace, Henri Theodore Pegosi, longtime chief of Simca, was introduced to General De Gaulle. "Ah" replied the President, "Mister Pegosi.".

That is, instead of the appropriate "Monsieur", he says "Mister". And this is from one of those things I'm constantly quoting, a war-

crimes trial. The chap who is testifying is a Dutch Colonel who refused to take an SS post. The issue had been, could people refuse to take those posts, and many people had said that they couldn't refuse or they would have been shot. He says they could. The defendant is one Hoffman. Now

the Dutch Colonel is talking.

[167]

350 [168]

The 46 year old Dutch Colonel made his testimony impassionedly and in almost flawless German. He raised his voice only once, when Hoffman, in a confrontation, addressed him without his military rank. "Colonel Van Dutton to you" the witness snapped.

Finally, this is from Wamer's The Yankee City series, Volume One. It's fairly rare to see this kind of thing in a sociological treatise, but Warner was trained as an anthropologist. He's talking here about his attempts to construct criteria of social class and social status (this is on pages 116--117).

While the analysis was being made of the newspaper clippings and interviews which described in detail the activities and meetings of the members of the associations, a difference was noticed in the principals of naming the individuals who participated. This difference suggested that the name variation might also mean a difference in social place.

(A good example of what is meant here is the custom of using the title Mr. or Mrs. in Southem society, only when addressing Whites, no matter whether they be poor Whites or aristocrats. The use of the title Mr. or Mrs. among the Whites exclusively, being a symbol of social; e.g., caste, position.)

In the upper class organizations which were composed in part or entirely of women, the woman was spoken of in the newspaper ac- counts by her husband's name. This was particularly true for any list of officers. In the case of several widows, they were still called by their husband's names even though the husbands had been dead for a long period of time.

When we came to associations in which we knew that a good percent- age of the members were lower class or lower middle, quite a different situation in the naming of women was found. In all cases the officers were given by their own feminine first names, and very frequently without the use of the title Mrs.

Note

1. Fall 1964 Tape 12 Side 1 pages 1-3.