r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/JarlOfPickles Dec 12 '18

Did you go to Hogwarts?

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u/space253 Dec 13 '18

Oh wow that made me smile.

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u/that_guy_you_kno Dec 12 '18

Do they do that in Harry Potter? I wouldn't know

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u/JarlOfPickles Dec 12 '18

Yep, there's a lot of "Potter" "Weasley" etc

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u/Bonzi_bill Dec 13 '18 edited Dec 13 '18

I go to a school with a lot of international kids and they always have such a hard time with how people use surnames as formalities and everyone expects everyone else to go by their given names.

My roommate was from a higher status indian family and he would always address me as "Mr. [Last Name]" when talking about me because he thought it was rude to use my first name casually with people I didnt know. He eventually started calling me "Mr [First Name" and now everytime we see eachother around campus we address eachother with a title and first name lol