Mateyness

[vinteuil]

As a middle-class child at a rough primary school in Cornwall in the early fifties, I adopted a Cornish accent and vocabulary to defuse tension, and disguise my class, at school in just this way, while speaking RP at home.

kernel bogey - at a (not particularly rough) primary school in Wiltshire in the early fifties, both my elder brothers adopted a Wiltshire accent and vocabulary to disguise their class, at school in just this way, while speaking RP at home...

For whatever reason, I never became bilingual and retained my RP both at home and at school; I somehow managed to escape bullying...

[amateur51]

Many years ago, one of the Sunday colour comics printed an interview with the much-missed actor Bill Fraser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Fraser

The interviewer took Fraser out to lunch in some swanky hotel and was wildly amused that on looking at the menu, Fraser beckoned to the waiter and enquired conspiratorially "Maestro! - do you have melon?"

This seems to me to be the equivalent of calling all police officers by a rank at least one higher than their uniform would suggest, e.g., to a constable, you would refer to her/him as 'Sergeant'

It works every time, in my experience, and many's the supercilious waiter I've heard give an involuntary giggle on being addressed as 'Maestro!'

[kernelbogey]

This seems to me to be the equivalent of calling all police officers by a rank at least one higher than their uniform would suggest, e.g., to a constable, you would refer to her/him as 'Sergeant'. It works every time, in my experience, and many's the supercilious waiter I've heard give an involuntary giggle on being addressed as 'Maestro!'

I've heard this done in Italy, where flattery is a fine art. Commendatore works well, presumably with those who don't know Mozart's Don Giovanni well .

[Serial_Apologist]

Both "My lover" and "My lovely" seemed pretty general throughout the southwest when I was living down there. Another term of endearment was "Me old cockerr" - a sort of equivalent of our "Wotcher cock!" - which could have *several* meanings, ahem.

[Petrushka]

Both "My lover" and "My lovely" seemed pretty general throughout the southwest when I was living down there. Another term of endearment was "Me old cockerr" - a sort of equivalent of our "Wotcher cock!" - which could have *several* meanings, ahem.

You might just about get away with 'my lovely' up here. Your other examples, along with others mentioned on this thread, are more likely to get you arrested.

[PatrickOD]

'Love' is common here, and always carries a warm connotation. Which is nice.
A certain contributor on the old boards used to address some fellow members as 'matey'. It was not nice.
Similarly, when a well known politician in NI addressed anyone as 'my friend', it was decidedly unfriendly.

[Bert Coules]

I heartily dislike the assumed intimacy of first-name address, though the practise is presumably here to stay. If asked for my name by a stranger, I always say "Coules" and am usually rewarded, if that's the word, by a sort of eyebrows-raised double-take. "Er... did you say 'Paul'?" is a fairly frequent response, too.

And in shops, when did "Are you all right there?" become the new "May I help you?"? I encounter it more and more. It's tempting to reply, "Actually, no I'm not: my old back injury is giving me hell, my budgie died this morning, my wife has run off with a taxidermist from Tenterden, and I'm worried about paying the mortgage..."

[mercia]

a taxidermist from Tenterden

I've been looking for one of them, thanks

[kernelbogey]

Another bizarre area of mateyness is in customer relations. Someone else has already mentioned call centres. But there is a trend in packaging - Innocent smoothies is one product that comes to mind - where the style of the information addresses the consumer as though chatting to them, and leading us to think they're just cooking up a few batches in their kitchen down the road. My Broadband supplier sends me an email every month in the style of a best mate, and my email supplier (or whatever they're called) when I've deleted the junk mail offering dubious medications etc says 'Hooray, you've no junk mail today!'. It all seems rather unnecessary, though I find myself wryly amused rather than irritated by it.

[Bert Coules]

Agreed about the packaging. I swear I had a ready-meal from a local supermarket recently which bore the legend, "Hey, wow, thanks for choosing this scrummy lasagne!" (Or something along those lines, at least.)

[kernelbogey]

Hugh Dennis or Steve Punt had a rant on the Now Show recently about buying a pack of nappies which proclaimed 'Follow us on Twitter'!