In areas where people meet with compassionate irony, everything is linguistically possible: the postman becomes a postal minister, the worker becomes a boss and the beer dumpling becomes a professor.
Post Minister
The classic postman is dying out, at least that’s what the dpa news agency reports. He is replaced by the so-called group delivery agent, who delivers fewer and fewer letters and more and more parcels with his van. The change from letter to parcel is fueled by the crazy number of online orders. In the countryside, parcels or not, people still talk about the postman. In the Landshut area, some postmen even bear the title of post minister, on an honorary basis. “Ah, the post minister is here!”, greet those mail recipients who have a penchant for affectionate irony. There was once a postal minister, but the Federal Ministry for Posts and Telecommunications was dissolved in 1998 in the course of privatization. Now the title of post minister only adorns one or the other postman. Workers from other sectors experience a similar revaluation. A worker who is asked for information quickly becomes a director or a boss: “You, boss, where is your foreman?” In Austria, virtually every Fiaker coachman is called a professor. The Berlin writer Gabriele Tergit recognized as early as 1931 that people need medals and titles. “You can address almost every general manager in Bavaria as Mr. Kommerzienrat, and the result is that people are satisfied.”
doctor
When the CSU politician Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned in 2011 because of his botched doctoral thesis, there was frustration in Straubing. Guttenberg was also canceled as a keynote speaker for the Gäuboden folk festival. In a survey, the majority of Straubingers found that Guttenberg could also open the festival as a former minister. The Lower Bavarians are very tolerant, especially when it comes to doctoral regulations. It’s true that you can’t buy a doctorate at the flea market yet, but there’s not much missing. Doctorates have always been done at the registry office. It used to be that not only the holder held the doctor’s degree, but also the wife, who sometimes said “Grüß Gott, Frau Doctor!” was spoken to. And that still happens today. Years ago, the author Ludwig Fichtlscherer scoffed at the fact that the waitress in the tavern called everyone who gave a tip “Herr Doctor”. “Next time you’ll be a professor.” The title addiction also reached the graveyard. There rest medical council widows, commercial council widows, senior teacher widows. . . It stopped at the tramway crack cleaner widow. “There would have to be a cross on the grave stoa,” Fichtlscherer smirked.