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Ingeborg Brown: Du/Sie

There are things that just seem strange, for example, when I go to the hairdresser's (just this Sunday again, to Super Cuts). She'll say, "What's your name?" Then of course I say, "Brown." Then she looks at me, "Mrs. Brown?" "Yes." I just cannot get myself accustomed to telling them, "My name is Ingeborg." They are young girls--well, they aren't all young girls. And they call out your name when it's your turn. Once I felt so overwhelmed [when they asked for my name] and said "Ingeborg," so they called out, "Ingeborg, it's your turn." And I thought, "No!" Even now it goes against my grain, although I can easily be on first name basis with Americans. That's no problem for me. But when visitors come from Germany now--on Monday and Tuesday I had company from Germany, and I met the wife of an acquaintance for the first time, and the daughter, too--she's a doctor. And at first we stood around, and I said Frau Rieder and Sie, and she said Frau Brown and Sie. But because we're in Texas, we went right away to first name and du, and in spite of that, we didn't keep it up completely consistently all the way through. The Sie slipped in again and again, because we'd just met each other. When you agree to it, and the woman is almost as old as I am, and the daughter is, as I said, certainly around thirty, too, it doesn't really make any difference to me when they say Ingeborg. But for me, to say du to them is also--at first, I've got to force myself to do it. When we talk in English, it's just you anyway, that's no problem. But also with first names.

I think for me that's the only thing where even today I still have these feelings that I just cannot suppress. When the neighbor's daughter, whom I've known since she was two or three or maybe a little older, when she says Ingeborg to me, each time I think, "That's something I really did not give you permission to do." (Laughs.) Well, I mean, probably I just won't get around that. We'll see.

What would happen in Germany if a little girl said Ingeborg to you?

She wouldn't do it. The mother would say, "That is Mrs. Brown. You don't say Ingeborg." I think it's respect for adults, or for age. No salesperson or someone who doesn't know you would ever in their life think of asking what your first name is; that is, whenever someone asks for your name, they expect only the last name.

Being on first name basis is a privilege. I worked with people in an office for the U.S. Army. There were a man and a woman, they had worked together for twenty years and only addressed each other by last name and by Sie. They weren't friends outside the office, and so it stayed on a formal basis. And that is not at all unusual. I mean, again, it is changing somewhat today, people have become somewhat more relaxed, my sister tells me. (Laughs.) But nevertheless, when someone just meets someone for the first time, I would be introduced as, "That's my sister, Mrs. Brown." And no one would ask, "What is your first name?" (Laughs.) Not until you know each other somewhat better, and then it's still the case that people do it according to a kind of ritual. The older person has to take the first step, or the person who is of higher social standing. So, yes, I think it still exists. But those are things that--when I go over, I really have to watch out, to see whether it's really changed. Well, it has changed somewhat, but to what extent I cannot at the time judge because we are usually with friends when we are in Germany on vacation. And it's interesting.