[HN Gopher] What Does the Title 'Esquire' Mean, Anyway?
___________________________________________________________________
What Does the Title 'Esquire' Mean, Anyway?
Author : pseudolus
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-02-06 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| D13Fd wrote:
| The article nails it with this quote:
|
| >American lawyers all could call themselves "Esquire," inasmuch
| as anyone can, and for lawyers it wouldn't be misleading. But not
| many do. "There's not a huge amount of debate, but when it does
| come up, there's a sense that this is a kind of archaic term,
| it's somewhat embarrassing," says Silversmith. "It's something
| where, in my personal experience, I would never use it. It would
| be horrifically pretentious to do that."
|
| This is correct. Seeing "esq." after a lawyer's name in an e-mail
| signature definitely tells you something about the person sending
| the e-mail (and it's not just that they are a lawyer...).
| pseudolus wrote:
| Amongst lawyers it might be seen as ridiculous but I've seen
| the title used on many a bus stop shelter featuring ads for
| personal injury attorneys. For some reason it seems to resonate
| with members of the general public. It was also adopted by Bill
| ("Bill S. Preston, Esq") of "Bill and Ted" fame. One would have
| hoped that would have generated some ridicule and killed the
| title but unfortunately it did not.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Funny... that's the only place (Bill and Ted's) I've ever
| seen the use of the word.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Yes. Those bus stop ads are an example of the kind of
| attorney who uses "esq."
| codingdave wrote:
| Personal injury lawyers who put up billboards and ads are
| also seen as ridiculous by the rest of the legal industry, so
| you are right on-track in your assessment.
| excalibur wrote:
| I'm assuming the Esquire was conferred on Bill S. Preston by
| his dad, making him the pretentious one. But of course the
| whole Wild Stallyns schtick was always more about being a
| musician than the music itself.
| ValentineC wrote:
| I only got around to watching all the Bill and Ted movies
| last month, and found this explanation to make more sense:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/397ukr/
| e...
|
| (tl;dr it's a reference to a watch ad.)
| A12-B wrote:
| Pretentious Lawyer is already a tautology, at least the ones
| who use Esq. are honest about it.
| andrew_ wrote:
| Is it commonplace for Atlas Obscura to include social and/or
| political commentary now? This is the first I've seen of an
| author there opining, and it's quite disappointing.
| Aloha wrote:
| What of this is social or political commentary?
| carlob wrote:
| It's not atlas obscura, it's reality that has a clear liberal
| bias
| pochamago wrote:
| This is a fairly political statement to put into an article
| on the linguistic history of a word:
|
| >The unstated goal of all this talk is a gross collection of
| sexism, elite gatekeeping, anti-elitism in general, and a
| simple partisan attack on the Biden administration
| cascom wrote:
| What's missing in a lot of this conversation is the spoken vs
| written honorific. There are many professions/designations that
| people may wish to be identified (often times reflective of their
| profession, work, achievements) e.g.
|
| Maj. Gen. Jane Smith, Ret.
|
| John Smith, P.E.
|
| Jane Smith, CPA
|
| The Honorable John Smith
|
| Dr. Jane Smith, PhD
|
| John Smith, Esq.
|
| All these written forms of address convey something about the
| person yet, verbally they would be Mr. Miss/Ms/Mrs when addressed
| (leaving aside the rabbit hole of Dr / PhD thing for the moment)-
| point being that there is difference in taking pride (even if to
| outsiders you may wonder why (appending MBA?!?!) it doesn't
| change they way they are addressed verbally.
| ghaff wrote:
| For that matter, there are people who append laundry lists of
| professional certs to their name in work emails.
|
| I guess it really depends.Things like PE, CPA, CFA, assuming
| they're relevant to your current position, make a lot of sense
| in a professional context. Appending MBA, ME, much less SB/BS,
| would just seem weird. (Unless it's specifically in an alumni
| context.)
| canadianfella wrote:
| Those people are typically shitty at their job, in my
| experience.
| consp wrote:
| Why don't they start using the requirement of having a Masters of
| Law degree to practice law, like some European countries do? This
| solves the "title" problem once and for all as they are then
| supposed to be qualified by passing a masters exam and infer an
| official title.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Article needlessly spends paragraphs bashing political
| conservatives for no purpose related to the point.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Ha. I see what you did there. Bashing crazy ideas became
| 'bashing conservatives'. Because they so often come up with
| crazy ideas?
|
| It's still fair and proper to bash crazy ideas. The notion that
| it isn't, may be another crazy idea. And I wonder who promotes
| that idea?
| k__ wrote:
| I heard, in Austria they use all degrees as titles.
|
| My girlfriend would get emails starting with _" Sehr geehrte Frau
| Magistra XYZ,..."_
| masswerk wrote:
| It's kind of difficult. :-)
|
| First, yes, academic titles are actually part of your name by
| law, which is extraordinarily weird. It's in your passport, in
| full abbreviated form, designating the faculty. (Like "Mag.
| phil." or "Dr. rer. soc. oec.", etc. I involuntarily checked
| into various hotels under the first name "Phil", because of
| this.) On the other hand, there are those who actually use a
| title in everyday life, even insist on it being used, and
| those, who merely ignore it for the most (reserved for
| interaction with potentially hostile bureaucracy, etc.) Using a
| title as an author is obviously a no go (with the probable
| exception of MDs), but it may happen. (A useful hint to not to
| buy a book.)
|
| Rather recently, we have even seen an inflation in academic
| titles, starting with commercial schools being upgraded to
| universities and their titles becoming academic titles, as
| well. Applied universities were rolled out at scale with titles
| first marked by a distinctive appendix "FH", which was later
| allowed to be dropped, for it having been perceived as a
| stigma. There's now a movement to grant masters of trade
| automatically the academic title of master.
|
| Then, there are bureaucratic and occupational titles, carefully
| chiselling out the exact position in the hierarchy, which enjoy
| frequent use in addresses of all kind. However, these are
| merely ornamental and are not part of your name.
|
| Lastly there's a third, highly ambiguous category, which is
| probably the most famous one, being the titles of "Professor"
| and "Hofrat" (Court Councillor), granted by the federal
| president. So _Professor_ may be someone with habilitation and
| occupying a _sede_ at a university, or it may be a merely
| honorary title, for the most reserved for celebrities of the
| cultural field, e.g. opera singers arriving at a certain age.
| Likewise, _Hofrat_ is used in some parts of the country as a
| bureaucratic title on the federal state level ( "wirklicher
| Hofrat", coming with its own pay grade), but its also a
| honorary title reserved for high ranking civil officers as some
| kind of no costs gratification for lifetime achievements, just
| before the transformation into a _Lipizzaner_ as the final
| apotheosis. (There 's also a complementary "Kommerzialrat" for
| ageing dignitaries of the commercial field. However, as this is
| quite unambiguous, it's also considered of slightly lesser
| interest.)
|
| (Quite opposed to this, any medals of honour are never yours,
| considered just on loan, and are expected to be returned in the
| case of your death. You're even prohibited from wearing them,
| with the exception of a few, regulated events, like the Vienna
| Opera Ball.)
|
| ---
|
| Edit: As a more serious explanation, Dr was the sole academic
| degree for almost all of the time and it was only granted by
| universities proper. It was only in the 1980s that a new
| academic system was adopted, introducing the intermediary
| degree of Magister, which came at sometimes three times the
| effort as compared to a doctorate in the previous system. So it
| was recognized as well, but with mixed reception. Meanwhile, we
| switched to the PhD system with an even more inflated system of
| titles, associated with varying degrees of esteem, use and
| general recognition.
| ginko wrote:
| Yeah, from an Austrian perspective the whole doctor title
| discussion in the US was sort of bizarre. Of course you call
| yourself doctor if you have a doctor's degree.
| ghaff wrote:
| The US is just not really into titles. We make exceptions for
| the clergy and medicine--and to a more limited degree within
| academia. But a lot of people find an insistence on titles in
| other contexts off putting.
|
| Per another comment. Look at a typical event registration
| form in the US. These days you probably have Mr., Ms., and
| prefer not to say. Fill one out for a (non-tech) event in the
| UK or Europe and you may have dozens of titles to choose
| from.
| iso1210 wrote:
| > The US is just not really into titles
|
| Except when it comes to military worship.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| I'd be interested in the history of how people in the medical
| profession came to misappropriate the term Doctor (which IIRC
| referred only to a PhD).
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Universities started out as trade schools for the clergy,
| lawyers and doctors. The Ph.D. significantly postdates that.
| The title of doctor originally meant you were qualified to
| lecture. It was in use long before anyone was granted a Ph.D.
| as an honorific basically equivalent to calling someone
| learned.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| > Universities started out as trade schools for the clergy,
| lawyers and doctors.
|
| You mean, "the clergy, lawyers and physicians?" :)
| pseudolus wrote:
| The short of it is that the title has arisen as a result of a
| form of professional jealousy, primarily with medical
| professionals. Everyone wants to stand out and mark their social
| class even in supposedly "classless" societies.
|
| Interestingly enough in francophone countries lawyers have their
| own commonly used honorific "master" or in french "maitre" (M). I
| don't expect that title will ever gain much traction in the US as
| lawyers would probably get tired of being asked to seat people in
| restaurants.
| MereInterest wrote:
| To be fair, similar professional jealousy is also the exact
| reason why "Doctor" in English refers to a physician. In the
| late 1800s, physicians felt that they as a profession didn't
| get enough respect, and decided to exclusively refer to each
| other as "Doctor", and require that patients refer to them that
| way as well. The terminal medical degree was renamed from
| "Bachelor of Medicine" to "Medical Doctor" as part of the same
| movement.
| brmgb wrote:
| > Interestingly enough in francophone countries lawyers have
| their own commonly used honorific "master" or in french
| "maitre" (M).
|
| Yes but it's never used outside of a professional setting in
| the same way everyone would have a good laught at the expense
| of someone with a PhD calling themself a doctor and using Dr in
| France.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > The short of it is that the title has arisen as a result of a
| form of professional jealousy, primarily with medical
| professionals.
|
| That... isn't indicated anywhere in the article at all.
|
| If I had to summarize: knights got wealthy, squires/esquires
| became a thing, folks started using "esquire" because it was
| then rich adjacent, then over time it got connected to the
| legal profession, through the article makes no attempt to
| really explain that evolution.
| pseudolus wrote:
| From the article: "But lawyers, unlike doctors (medical or
| otherwise), have no other title-based way to signal what they
| do, or, to be somewhat uncharitable, that what they do is
| special, and therefore that who they are is important."
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Nothing in the paragraph indicates an origin for the
| connection to the legal profession.
|
| In fact, later in the piece they explicitly state that the
| origin of that connection is unknown:
|
| > Successive writers tried to pin down what it actually
| meant, with no great success. Ferne, who was himself also a
| lawyer, noted that it was often used by those in the legal
| profession. Later definitions suggest someone adjacent to
| power, maybe the son of a knight or the younger son of a
| titled noble who would receive no other title of his own.
| But also, consistently, it included someone in a legal
| profession: a justice of the peace, a barrister, a
| sergeant-at-law. It was never recorded, explicitly, why
| this might be.
| pseudolus wrote:
| Perhaps instead of stating "that the title has arisen as
| a result of a form of professional jealousy" I should
| have stated "that use of the title has arisen as a result
| of a form of professional jealousy" which is entirely
| consistent with the author implying that lawyers need to
| signal that what they do is special".
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| So if your comment is about "what does the title mean",
| yup, no argument there. Today, it means lawyer.
|
| The article is about _why_.
|
| And the article explicitly states we have _no idea_ why
| the term is now attached to the legal profession.
|
| Again, all we know is: knights got rich, squires became a
| thing, people started using "esquire" to appear rich
| adjacent, then ... esquire == lawyer.
|
| That's it. That's all the article gives us as far as the
| origin story goes.
|
| But maybe you're not talking about the origin and instead
| just talking about contemporary use, in which case we're
| in violent agreement! :)
| slim wrote:
| Isn't it controversial these days? (see debate about
| master/slave in computer context) /s
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| > The short of it is that the title has arisen as a result of a
| form of professional jealousy, primarily with medical
| professionals. Everyone wants to stand out and mark their
| social class even in supposedly "classless" societies.
|
| This is my understanding too. In my opinion, use of honorifics
| demonstrates a character flaw that should be corrected, not
| accommodated or encouraged.
|
| My general M.O is to use the same level of formality with a
| person that they use with me. For example, if my physician uses
| my first name, I use hers.
|
| This lets me match their desired level of _familiarity_ , but
| disregards any pretense they might try to introduce.
| wegs wrote:
| The first segment, on Dr/Mrs/Mademe/First Lady/etc. Biden is ill-
| informed.
|
| The use of titles carries very different implications in
| different cultures. America is diverse. First name can signify
| disrespect or familiarity. Titles can signify high status, or
| stuffy pretentiousness. "Dr" can be reserved for medical doctors,
| can extend to PhDs, or even extend to JDs.
|
| I spent 15 minutes, the other day, on an inane debate with a
| colleague, before we realized we were using a word with subtly
| different meanings.
|
| There's a new form of strawman attack, where you point to a crazy
| on the internet with some opinion, and stereotype everyone to
| have that same opinion, and the linked article is clearly from
| someone with issues. But the fact remains tht there are cultural
| pockets of culture where all the terms are appropriate and don't
| convey disrespect, whether "Jill," "First Lady," "Dr. Biden,"
| "Mrs. Biden," "Madame President," or even "Hey you." Conversely,
| there are cultural pockets where all of those convey disrespect.
|
| If you're aware of it, and look for it, it's not hard to tell
| which is which, even.
|
| In a multicultural society, we should try to hear what the other
| person is trying to say, assume good intentions, and not pick
| battles over semantics. Your words and body language mean
| something different than mine, and that's okay. We should try to
| communicate. Disrespect isn't about a title, but what's behind
| it.
| ghaff wrote:
| By and large, call people what they want to be called even if
| you think it's a bit unnecessary and pretentious. The fracas
| over Dr. Biden was silly and whatever one's views of PhDs/other
| research doctorates emphasizing a doctor title, it's important
| to some--both male and female--and the latter also gets into
| all sorts of issues of sexism and perceived sexism.
|
| As the article says, the US in general is less into titles than
| the UK. I went to an event put on by The Economist a couple
| years back and the registration form forced you to choose a
| title and I think were about 30 choices and you had to pick
| one. (Mr. and Ms. of course but also Lord, Dame, Rev., etc.)
| bloak wrote:
| Somebody at https://fm.schmoller.net/2010/01/if-ever-you-
| need-a-really-c... quotes a list of 133 choices of title
| offered by the Royal Opera House ticket booking system. It's
| not a lot of bytes so perhaps I can quote it:
|
| Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, Advocate, Ambassador, Baron, Baroness,
| Brigadier, Canon, Captain, Chancellor, Chief, Col, Comdr,
| Commodore, Councillor, Count, Countess, Dame, Dr, Duke of,
| Earl, Earl of, Father, General, Group Captain, H R H the
| Duchess of, H R H the Duke of, H R H The Princess, HE Mr, HE
| Senora, HE The French Ambassador M, His Highness, His Hon,
| His Hon Judge, Hon, Hon Ambassador, Hon Dr, Hon Lady, Hon
| Mrs, HRH, HRH Sultan Shah, HRH The, HRH The Prince, HRH The
| Princess, HSH Princess, HSH The Prince, Judge, King, Lady,
| Lord, Lord and Lady, Lord Justice, Lt Cdr, Lt Col, Madam,
| Madame, Maj, Maj Gen, Major, Marchesa, Marchese, Marchioness,
| Marchioness of, Marquess, Marquess of, Marquis, Marquise,
| Master, Mr and Mrs, Mr and The Hon Mrs, President, Prince,
| Princess, Princessin, Prof, Prof Emeritus, Prof Dame,
| Professor, Queen, Rabbi, Representative, Rev Canon, Rev Dr,
| Rev Mgr, Rev Preb, Reverend, Reverend Father, Right Rev, Rt
| Hon, Rt Hon Baroness, Rt Hon Lord, Rt Hon Sir, Rt Hon The
| Earl, Rt Hon Viscount, Senator, Sir, Sister, Sultan, The
| Baroness, The Countess, The Countess of, The Dowager
| Marchioness of, The Duchess, The Duchess of, The Duke of, The
| Earl of, The Hon, The Hon Mr, The Hon Mrs, The Hon Ms, The
| Hon Sir, The Lady, The Lord, The Marchioness of, The
| Princess, The Reverend, The Rt Hon, The Rt Hon Lord, The Rt
| Hon Sir, The Rt Hon The Lord, The Rt Hon the Viscount, The Rt
| Hon Viscount, The Venerable, The Very Rev Dr, Very Reverend,
| Viscondessa, Viscount, Viscount and Viscountess, Viscountess,
| W Baron, W/Cdr
| caf wrote:
| The Qantas Frequent Flyer program used to offer a similar
| list, it doesn't seem to anymore though.
| wegs wrote:
| Well, let me pick those apart.
|
| 1) By-and-large, I do call people by what they want to be
| called, but by-and-large, I have few ways of knowing before
| we've interacted. Over email, I typically mirror whatever
| they use (if they call me with a title, I use that back; if
| they use first name, likewise). In person, I mirror what
| their colleagues use. Of course, that's imperfect, since
| we're in different places in the status hierarchy and have
| different levels of familiarity, but it's the best heuristic
| I've found. But just because I do that, I won't fault others
| for not doing it. Lack of access to cross-cultural education
| is common. I accept whatever people call me, so long as the
| *intention* isn't to be insulting.
|
| 2) Real and perceived sexism and racism cause the same level
| of harm. There's a lot of both -- I'm not downplaying real
| sexism or racism -- but if people aren't given cross-cultural
| tools, there's a lot of unnecessary harm as well. If a
| British woman/minority/etc. comes to the US, is called by her
| first name, and believes she's placed at lower status due to
| her gender, real harm is done, unnecessarily. And if an
| American women/minorities/etc believes everyone in Britain is
| stand-offish, similar harm is done. I see this sort of
| dynamic playing out over, and over, and over across virtually
| all cultural pairings.
|
| 3) I didn't actually follow the "fracas over Dr. Biden." Most
| news gets paid by clicks, and most fracas become much greater
| than they are. The right runs articles cherry-picking left-
| wing wackos, and vice-versa. I'm not going to alter my
| opinion over a fracas.
|
| Getting back to hierarchy, for the most part, I actually
| think it's better to leave up to the person higher in the
| hierarchy to adapt (which, in my current job, is usually me).
| Right now, the First Lady is just about as close to the top
| as it gets. If she goes to a progressive elite universities,
| she should go by "Jill." If she goes to Britain, she should
| use an honorific or three. I think most African American
| communities might go with "Dr. Biden." And so on.
| buserror wrote:
| It's still used in England -- my accountant (old school) writes
| to me as "Mr M xxx, Esq" -- and I'm not a lawyer. It is supposed
| to be a form of politeness when mentioning someone else's name.
| philbo wrote:
| Esq should not be combined with Mr though, it's either/or.
| fortran77 wrote:
| > _The minor debate over Lady Dr. Jill Biden's title, which came
| up shortly after her husband's election, may seem completely
| ridiculous and insulting, which it is, but it's also the latest
| in a line of kerfuffles relating to how people in power in the
| United States present themselves_
|
| "Ridiculous and insulting?", not really. There's a long history
| of people mocking "Ed.D" holders calling themselves "Dr." outside
| of specific contexts. (Like on a paper or publication that's
| related to your field, etc.) And an Ed.D. is not a Ph.D. You
| don't see people with JD degrees calling themselves "Doctor" or
| even using the term "Esquire" outside of specific contexts, like
| on an article of incorporation for their Professional
| Corporation. etc.
|
| You may see the actual degree indicated (Ph.D, Ed. D) after a
| name on a professional paper, etc. But not the term "Dr."
|
| For an example take, see this blog posting from 2017, before
| anyone was thinking of First Lady Biden or her title:
| https://headinthesandblog.org/2017/06/ed-d-school-leaders-de....
| Also see Wikipedia on this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Education#Comparison...
|
| And this article negates its own point in its conclusion! It says
| "lawyers can use the term Esquire, but not many do." Michelle
| Obama, by all accounts a competent attorney, never demanded to be
| called "Lady Dr. Michelle Obama, Esquire" even though with her
| J.D. and admission to the bar it would be logical. She would have
| been mocked the same way Jill Biden was.
| eplanit wrote:
| Yes. If you have a PhD and you were an academic or researcher
| or practitioner, then fine call yourself "doctor". If, like
| jill Biden, you never really applied yourself in that domain as
| a professional career, then get over yourself.
|
| I guess we'll overturn those conventions now for the sake of
| politics.
| hanche wrote:
| Anecdote time: I spent the academic year 1980/81 as a visitor at
| the University of Toronto. I stayed at Massey College. They would
| add letters behind everybody's names on doors and the list of
| residents to indicate their academic degree. But they couldn't
| make any sense out of my Norwegian degree (cand.real.), so they
| used esq. instead.
| kova12 wrote:
| I do like this amendment! I'd say, if it's not a thing, it should
| be passed.
| MaggieL wrote:
| Political screed not up to AOs usual standards.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| I learned a different history of the term Esquire in law school.
| As the article says, the term Esquire was first used to describe
| the person who helped a Knight by handing him weapons and helping
| him get up in their heavy armor after getting knocked to the
| ground in a joust. So how did it become ascribed to a modern-day
| lawyer?
|
| When you think of a legal trial, you think of Tom Cruise in A Few
| Good Men ("You can't handle the truth!"). But before this modern
| trial by jury, there were many types of trials in the Middle
| Ages. There was Trial by Fire, where people walked over hot
| coals. If they were not injured, they were innocent. There was
| also Trial by Combat where the accused had to fight the King's
| Champion. Since the King's Champion, usually a knight, had his
| own esquire, the accused was given an esquire as well to assist
| the accused in the trial. Later, when the more civilized Trial by
| Jury became the norm, an esquire assisting the accused remained
| an essential feature.
|
| The term Esquire grew to include an office of trust for the King
| and his court. In America, a lawyer, the person assisting the
| accused in a court of law, also became a trusted officer of the
| court of law, with the title Esquire. Of course in America, where
| there is no formal peerage or titles, the title of Esquire is
| mainly traditional, and not a formal feature of the judicial
| system.
| bradknowles wrote:
| Knights actually had "Squires", not "Esquires".
|
| A Squire was a person to assist you in all your Knightly
| activities, not just in helping you in combat or a jousting
| tournament. Squires were also usually expensive, and therefore
| some Knights might not have a Squire at all, they might have
| just one Squire, or they might have multiple Squires.
|
| The relationship between Knight and Squire was very much like
| the relationship between any other type of Master and his
| Apprentice.
|
| There were also Men-At-Arms who were further down the totem
| pole from Squires.
|
| The concept of "Esquire" came later.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > In the 20th century, the country slowed and then stopped giving
| out hereditary titles; the last one granted was in 1984
|
| Wasn't the 1st Baronet Thatcher created in 1990?
|
| > But lawyers, unlike doctors (medical or otherwise), have no
| other title-based way to signal what they do
|
| Don't most lawyers in the US have a JD? That's a doctorate isn't
| it? Can you call yourself 'doctor' from that? (Not even all
| medical doctors calling themselves 'doctor' have a doctorate!)
| cascom wrote:
| Thatcher, and I believe all ex-PM's, are typically given a
| peerage, however they are not hereditary and thus are called
| life peers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_peer
| detaro wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcher_baronets
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't know why you'd look this up on Wikipedia but not
| actually look up what I referenced.
|
| > The Thatcher baronetcy, of Scotney in the County of Kent,
| is a baronetcy created for the husband of Margaret Thatcher,
| Denis Thatcher, on 7 December 1990, following the resignation
| of his wife on 28 November. The current holder is Mark
| Thatcher, who succeeded his father in 2003.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcher_baronets
| bidirectional wrote:
| No PM since Thatcher has been given a peerage, though I
| believe Major through Brown turned them down, unsure about
| Cameron, and May is still an MP. Historically they would be
| given an hereditary earldom, this switched to life peerages
| under Douglas-Home (who gave up his hereditary earldom to
| become Prime Minister). Churchill was famously offered a
| dukedom by both The Queen and George VI, turning down both.
| D13Fd wrote:
| You definitely can't call yourself a "doctor" in the U.S. just
| by virtue of having a law degree (unless you also have a Ph.D.)
| [deleted]
| Sharlin wrote:
| But the GP was talking about having a JD, not just any law
| degree. Dr. Biden does not have a PhD (or an MD), which led
| to the mentioned controversy, but the majority opinion seems
| to be that any doctorate (at least a non-honorary one)
| confers the right to use "Dr.", right?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| That's interesting, I never before this comment realized
| people were nitpicking an EdD vs PhD. Thanks.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| The difference between a real and substantial piece of
| original research and a double length Master's thesis is
| not nitpicking.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| To be fair, in many disciplines PhD theses are often not
| real and substantial pieces of research either. But they
| should be and it's only due to grade inflation that they
| aren't, so there is still a difference.
| furyg3 wrote:
| > Dr. Biden does not have a PhD (or an MD), which led to
| the mentioned controversy
|
| Dr. Biden has an EdD, or Doctor of Education, which is a
| research doctorate. People with this title commonly use the
| title "Dr", as they do have a doctoral degree.
|
| AFAIK 'Dr.' is not a protected title in the US, so anyone
| can call themselves Dr. if they so choose. Where they get
| into trouble is if they are using the title fraudulently;
| for example to imply that they are a medical doctor, or
| claim to have a degree that they do not actually have.
| kube-system wrote:
| > AFAIK 'Dr.' is not a protected title in the US, so
| anyone can call themselves Dr. if they so choose.
|
| Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre
| MereInterest wrote:
| Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre
| D13Fd wrote:
| No. JD is the standard and lowest law degree (the other
| being the uncommon LLM, which requires more education than
| a JD but is not used in most fields of law), and does not
| allow you to call yourself "doctor."
| rhino369 wrote:
| JD is considered to be the "terminal" degree for law.
| While its technically the "standard and lowest law
| degree" its also the highest. Professors at law schools
| mostly have JDs (some also have PhDs, but most don't).
|
| Some programs have a SJD that is a rough approximation
| for research doctorate for law. But they are mostly
| money-grab degrees aimed at foreigners.
|
| LLMs are basically the lawyer equivalent of a "graduate
| certificate." You take ~7-9 classes (the same electives
| JD candidates are taking). LLMs for people with foreign
| law degrees can be worth while, but the rest are money
| grab programs (with the exception of a Tax LLM since most
| law students don't take any tax classes).
|
| Professional "doctorates" aren't really the same as
| doctorate. But I'd lump MD and D.Ed in with JD too.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > JD is considered to be the "terminal" degree for law.
|
| No, that's the SJD.
|
| > While its technically the "standard and lowest law
| degree"
|
| No, that is the BSL, though most students pursuing law
| get a different baccalaureate degree and then enter a JD
| program. JD is a first-professional degree, not the
| lowest degree in the field.
|
| > LLMs for people with foreign law degrees can be worth
| while
|
| Also, IIRC, an LLM is a cheaper and quicker alternative
| to an ABA-accredited JD as a qualification to sit for the
| bar exam in certain jurisdictions, if you are already
| admitted to practice in a foreign jurisdiction.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Ah, so it's just a question of nomenclature. Was just
| curious because around here a juridical doctorate is a
| research degree just like a PhD, and most practicers of
| law are not doctors. Indeed most medical doctors are not
| doctors either but rather licentiates (an intermediate
| degree between a master and a doctor) :D
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| JD literally stands for Juris Doctor.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I'm sure you're right - but do you know why that is? It
| is a doctorate isn't it? What makes some doctorates
| qualify and others not?
| tiahura wrote:
| An attorney (under the model rules) can call themselves
| doctor (your state may vary). No one does because it
| would get you laughed at by other attorneys (as we should
| do to Dr. Biden).
| ecopoesis wrote:
| Why should we laugh at Dr. Biden? She has the terminal
| degree in her field, only it happens to to not be a PhD.
| She is a professor.
|
| Should we also laugh at folks who graduate from MIT's
| doctoral programs and want to be addressed as "Doctor"
| even though their degree might be a ScD?
| rhino369 wrote:
| She should absolutely be called professor when she's
| acting in her role in academia.
|
| But an EdD is a professional degree like a JD or PharmD.
| Demanding we call her doctor out of her professional
| context is bizarre unless you want your cousin with a JD
| demanding you do the same.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > She is a professor.
|
| Shouldn't we call her 'Professor' then, since that
| outranks 'Doctor'?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| In Europe, yes. Not in the United States. There are many
| professors who do not have a PhD or even necessarily a
| terminal degree.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know about "outranks" in any formal sense. But,
| yes, most professors I know tend to go by professor
| rather than doctor.
| ecopoesis wrote:
| If Dr. Biden wants to be called Professor then yes we
| should. But she's made it clear she wants to be addressed
| as Doctor, a title she is entitled to, so what value is
| there in not respecting her wishes?
| tiahura wrote:
| https://abovethelaw.com/2020/11/lawyers-calling-
| themselves-d...
|
| "We've long taken the stance that, despite the
| technicality that a "J.D." has the word "doctor" in it,
| lawyers who adopt the honorific are, well, jackasses."
| jariel wrote:
| "a title she is entitled to, so what value is there in
| not respecting her wishes?"
|
| Because it's pompous, self-aggrandizing and totally
| deserving of ridicule for people to use highly formal
| titles when it is not normative.
|
| More ridiculous are the attacks on anyone who objects to
| it as 'sexist and partisan'.
|
| Profs and PhDs in the United States and elsewhere do not
| use such titles outside of Academia. Nobody in the US
| uses the term but medical doctors and dentists, or, in
| the most formal of situations. Profs if they are teaching
| - maybe.
|
| Do we say 'Doctor' when they talk about Steven Pinker?
|
| Neil De Grasse Tyson?
|
| Angel Merkel?
|
| Anyone else ?
|
| No, of course not.
|
| 'Dr. Sanjay Gupta' on CNN - yes - of course, but not
| because he's a PhD, but because he's a Medical Doctor,
| that is the normative usage, and it's relevant to his
| work.
|
| Anyone has the 'right' to use such titles can obviously
| use them, but you can also wear a Tuxedo to Applebee's,
| that doesn't make it not ridiculous.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Outranks isn't the right term for it. "Doctor" is an
| educational description, that one is qualified to teach
| on the subject. "Professor" is a job description, that
| one is currently teaching. If a person retires, they are
| no longer a Professor, but they are still a Doctor.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Ah - in the UK 'Professor' is a rank and you keep it
| after you retire.
| gkop wrote:
| In the US there is a high rank of Professor, Professor
| Emeritus, that specifically confers that it is kept after
| retirement.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| "Professor" is the US is roughly equivalent to "lecturer"
| in the UK, if I understand correctly. Basically any
| permanent teaching position at a university and even some
| of the non-permanent ones are called "professor" in the
| US.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Interesting, and that's a cultural difference that I
| wasn't aware of. For context, I'm from the US, and very
| few people insist on titles of any kind. In grad school,
| most of the professors went by first names only. That
| said, some of the professors were German and had horror
| stories of _their_ professors getting enraged at students
| having the wrong order of titles in "Herr Professor
| Doktor Doktor", or forgetting the appropriate number of
| "Doktor"s for each professor. How much of that is a
| location-based difference or a generational difference, I
| couldn't say.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Yes you wouldn't use Dr or Prof in normal speech in
| person in the UK either - that'd be very dorky.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not at a neighbor's barbecue, but in a US academic
| setting, it would be pretty natural in my experience to
| address someone as "professor" even if you knew them well
| enough to also refer to them by their first name. Doctor
| would not be particularly natural.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Should we also laugh at folks who graduate from MIT's
| doctoral programs and want to be addressed as "Doctor"
| even though their degree might be a ScD?
|
| Yes. Insisting on the use of titles is vaguely European.
| That's not how we do things in America, where the title
| for the _head of state_ is just "Mr. President."
| shakow wrote:
| > That's not how we do things in America, where the title
| for the head of state is just "Mr. President."
|
| So, just like in Europe? "Mr. Prime Minister", "M. le
| President", "Frau Bundeskanzlerin", "Herr Bundeskanzler",
| ...
| [deleted]
| barry-cotter wrote:
| "The" terminal degree is inaccurate. Ph.D.s in education
| are granted all the time to people who plan to become
| professors. The Ed.D. is also a terminal degree in
| education but the standards are much lower because it's
| not for aspirant academics; it's for aspirant principals
| and superintendents.
| masklinn wrote:
| According to the wiki it's a combination of historical
| happenstance:
|
| > It has not been customary in the United States to
| address holders of the J.D. as "doctor". It was noted in
| the 1920s, when the title was widely used by people with
| doctorates (even those that, at the time, were
| undergraduate qualifications) and others, that the J.D.
| stood out from other doctorates in this respect.
|
| and a form of... I guess gatekeeping / elitism?
|
| > In the late 1960s, the rising number of American law
| schools awarding J.D.s led to debate over whether lawyers
| could ethically use the title "Doctor". Initial informal
| ethics opinions, based on the Canons of Professional
| Ethics then in force, came down against this.
|
| Apparently the 1969 Code of Professional Responsibility
| allows JD to call themselves Doctors _but_ not all bars
| adopted it, and some adopted it _without_ the clause.
|
| So:
|
| * it's customary in the US to not call JDs doctors
|
| * it may or may not be allowed by the state bar
|
| In 2011, _Mother Jones_ had to amend an article where
| they stated that Michelle Bachmann "was misrepresenting
| her qualifications" by titling herself Dr. based on her
| JD.
| D13Fd wrote:
| No. It may be because JD's are so common and easy to earn
| relative to a Ph.D. (at least a hard science Ph.D.).
|
| The JD itself is not meaningful for the practice of law -
| its passing the bar that matters. But that's true for
| other professions too (doctors).
| sithadmin wrote:
| The primary reason is that it's simply not customary.
| That's it. It's no deeper than that.
|
| But JD programs also differ significantly from
| academically oriented PhD programs in that the
| overwhelming majority of them focus on generalized
| practical knowledge and skills alone. Most don't even
| properly prepare graduates for local licensure exams,
| forcing them to do yet another prep course (or at least
| intense self-study) prior to practicing their trade. In
| this regard, it's a degree that's more similar to an MBA
| than it is a PhD, and while it shares traits with MD
| programs, MD programs have a much deeper emphasis on
| theory, and a much deeper emphasis on practice and ethics
| than you'll see in any JD program.
|
| That's not to say that there aren't folks that do a JD
| but proceed along an "academic" track intended to focus
| on original research and prepare for legal scholarship.
| These people exist, but they are a tiny minority among JD
| candidates.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's all about custom at the end of the day. Using Dr.
| for PhD/ScD (and other research doctorates) is a bit of a
| funny case in the US because depending on the context
| using it might seem the most natural thing in the world
| or it can seem out of place to some.
|
| But, for that matter, maybe you think it makes sense to
| put PE and whatever certs you have after your name in
| professional emails. But it will seem odd to some and
| certainly would seem out of place in a personal email.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > maybe you think it makes sense to put PE and whatever
| certs you have after your name in professional emails
|
| I've always thought that to be a bit weird. The only time
| it makes sense to me is in official communication where
| you are specifically asserting your expertise. My manager
| has MBA after his name in all the emails he sends. IMO
| that comes off as really pretentious.
|
| But maybe this should be true of most titles. Should a
| medical doctor point out their title at all times, even
| when they're not representing themselves as anything
| other than average citizen?
| ghaff wrote:
| Licensure, like PE, CPA, CFA, MD, DO, etc. is definitely
| relevant in a lot of context, so I'd actually expect it
| to be listed on a website in a lot of cases and probably
| part an email sig. Doctor for medically-oriented
| professional degrees is somewhat orthogonal but it is
| customary.
|
| PhDs is more questionable outside of academia (where
| people deeply care about this sort of thing). But MBA?
| Outside of an alumni context I'm not sure I have ever
| seen someone do that. (This isn't a particular poke at
| MBAs. I'd feel the same way about an M.Eng.)
| mebassett wrote:
| it's a doctorate in name only. It is actually a
| professional degree. In other common law countries the
| first legal degree is an LLB. Unlike other doctoral
| degrees, it does not signify that the holder can lecture
| or practice medicine or other research in the field.
| confusingly, there are PhDs in law, LLDs (doctor of laws)
| and even LLMs (master of laws) that are sometimes higher
| than the JD.
| leephillips wrote:
| It's not a doctorate, even though the d stands for
| doctor. The J.D. is kind of an odd special case. The use
| of Dr. for a J.D. would be contrary to custom and make no
| sense. It is a vocational certification, requiring no
| research nor contribution to knowledge--just two to three
| years of classwork.
| Retric wrote:
| Doctor on it's own doesn't require research. What needs
| research is Ph.D for "doctor of philosophy" more
| specifically "philosophiae doctor."
|
| M.D. is "Medical Doctor" other examples are D.M.A.
| "Doctor of Musical Arts" for music performers and Ed.D.
| "Doctor of Education" which is closest to the original
| meaning of Doctor. You also have
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Arts and a few
| others.
|
| PS: _While the Ph.D. is the most common doctoral degree
| in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education
| and the National Science Foundation recognize numerous
| research-oriented doctoral degrees such as the D.A. as
| "equivalent",[1][2] and do not discriminate between
| them._
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > It is a vocational certification, requiring no research
| nor contribution to knowledge--just two to three years of
| classwork.
|
| The same is true of an M.D. though with four years.
| They're both doctorates.
| wl wrote:
| An MD is the first degree one earns in the subject. It
| takes four years to earn. It used to be a bachelor's
| degree: MB or MBBS. In the modern era, the premed
| requirements pushing total medical education to five and
| a half years probably justifies making the degree a
| master's degree. The residencies and fellowships that
| physicians do after earning the MD that are virtually
| required for any physician to practice probably make
| calling physicians "doctor" appropriate.
|
| Still, calling the MD a doctorate is questionable.
| leephillips wrote:
| We call doctors "doctors" not because of the "D" in MD
| but because they are doctors.
| wl wrote:
| We call physicians "doctors" because the profession
| aggressively pushed the title on the public in an era
| where modern medicine was emerging from quackery. The
| title means "teacher" and was previously used for people
| who were especially learned.
| leephillips wrote:
| Thanks. I'm not aware of how the term has traveled
| through history, so this is interesting. I just meant
| that, for most people, "doctor" is almost synonymous with
| physician, but, as you say, this may be more recent than
| I thought.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Most state's attorney ethics boards to allow you to call
| yourself a Doctor. But in practice, you look like a fool
| doing so.
| scythe wrote:
| On the other hand, if you have no such degree and write
| novels about tripping on ether in Las Vegas, you can get away
| with it.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| It's no more or less fraudulent than the holder of an Ed.D.
| using the title. Just because it's a jumped up Bachelor's,
| like an M.D. doesn't mean you can't choose to use the title.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You can call yourself whatever you want in the US, unless
| you're trying to sell medical advice and claiming to be a
| medical doctor and you're not.
|
| Although a bunch of states are allowing people who have no
| expertise or study of evidence based medicine to sell their
| services as doctors, so even that standard is getting
| lowered.
|
| Edit: fixed can can typo
| D13Fd wrote:
| That's true in that there is no law against it. You can
| give yourself whatever title you want.
|
| Other people are going to find it confusing and
| embarrassing though.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I know someone who has done this supposedly because they
| were working in a facility around children where everyone
| needed a graduate level degree. They got a bogus PhD from
| a degree mill to use for a title.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Good metapoint - you don't even have to call yourself, you
| can can yourself! :D
| tiziniano wrote:
| Yeah, you hit a pretty deep cultural point about the US
| here. Everyone "can be anything" just by thinking it. And
| that's not even getting in to the pronoun people...
| [deleted]
| wl wrote:
| The JD is a three-year degree that is the first one earned in a
| subject. If that sounds like a bachelor's degree, it's because
| it really is: It used to be called an LLB or Bachelor of Laws.
| But law schools renamed it in a misguided attempt to increase
| the prestige of the legal profession. The only pretense it has
| to being called a graduate degree is that law schools require
| usually another bachelor's degree in a different subject. It's
| still a second bachelor's degree.
|
| In short, the JD is a "doctorate" in name only. The legal
| community, for the most part, is wise enough not to push the
| matter.
| swampthing wrote:
| By this definition, an MD is also a bachelor's degree.
| wl wrote:
| Sure. I've said as much elsewhere:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047229
| swampthing wrote:
| Cool, just pointing out where that logic leads.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In the UK the medical degree that most medical doctors do
| _is_ an undergraduate bachelor's degrees. They use
| 'doctor' as a courtesy title after graduating, but only if
| they're junior and not a surgeon.
| swampthing wrote:
| Yea, I was referring to the MD degree (guessing the
| degree you're referring to is not called that).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In the UK most medical doctors get Bachelor of Medicine
| and Bachelor of Surgery degrees.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _They use 'doctor' as a courtesy title after
| graduating, but only if they're junior and not a
| surgeon._
|
| What are they known by when they stop being "junior"?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thechao wrote:
| I think they're talking about hereditary _peers_ ; a baronet is
| not a peer.
| cascom wrote:
| A baronet is not a peer, but it is a hereditary title, Mark
| Thatcher(Husband) was made one, Margaret Thatcher was made a
| baron (different, and is a peer) but hers was a life peerage
| not a hereditary one.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| It just says 'hereditary titles', and a baronetcy is an
| hereditary title (which is why it was awarded to her husband,
| not Thatcher herself.)
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Are there any non-class reasons why lawyers would require a
| "title-based way to signal what they do"?
|
| Plenty of professions with equivalent training have no
| honorific (even if they do list various letters after their
| names).
| [deleted]
| bradknowles wrote:
| To be a lawyer in the US, you only have to pass the bar exam,
| presumably in the state where you are located.
|
| Many state bars have reciprocity agreements with other
| states, so that you can be admitted to the bar in a state you
| have recently moved to, by applying to the state bar
| association and providing your credentials with the other
| state bar association. Oh, and the fee, of course.
|
| Some state bar exams are much tougher than others, and they
| don't have a reciprocity agreement. New York is one such well
| known example.
|
| The reciprocity situation gets more weird when you talk about
| moving from one country to another. And the UK situation is
| also weird, with regards to Solicitors versus Barristers --
| one type practices law inside the courtroom, while the other
| type practices law outside the courtroom -- and I can never
| keep straight which is which.
|
| Having a JD doesn't really have any bearing on whether you
| can pass the bar exams.
|
| Source: my wife is a lawyer, she has a JD from Georgetown
| Law, she is a member of the DC, NY, and TX bar associations,
| and when we moved to Texas from Belgium in 2006 we had to go
| through some real wacky stuff with regards to reciprocity.
| bradknowles wrote:
| Oh, and my wife never calls herself "Doctor". She will tell
| people that she has a JD, if they ask. But that's as far as
| she goes in that area.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| No there's not. This is all about class signaling.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| These days they don't, which is why, as the article notes,
| not many lawyers use the term, as it's seen as archaic and
| pretentious.
| bink wrote:
| I am curious about the statement:
|
| "In California, Arizona, and the District of Columbia, local bar
| associations have penalized or advised against any non-lawyer (or
| suspended lawyer) from appending "Esquire" to their names, as it
| may erroneously signal the capacity to practice law."
|
| If the title carries no legal weight how can a bar association
| "penalize" a non-lawyer for using it?
|
| I ask because I have a friend who is a lawyer and used to include
| "Esquire" in his email signature. As a jab at him I started doing
| the same in group emails and he (jokingly) suggested I could be
| pursued legally for using that title.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| "Wanker"
|
| Sorry couldn't help it.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Both the medical and legal professions engaged in "degree
| inflation" when awarding "doctorates" for degrees that don't meet
| the academic qualifications for a traditional doctorate degree.
| The medical profession took it further and wanted to be called
| "doctor" (traditionally an academic title reserved for those with
| the highest degrees in a subject, with the title literally
| meaning "to teach.")
|
| The medical community makes a big deal about the title thing and
| it's broadly rooted in attempts by previous generations of
| physicians to be seen as a respected and legitimate profession.
| Until well into the early 20th century that was a struggle for
| physicians, who were often viewed as crack pots that engaged in
| wild unscientific practices---because that was true for many.
| Medical school was a joke at the time by modern standards.
|
| So for all the reasons above when any physician tries to suggest
| that a physician is the only "real doctor" you can roll your eyes
| and suggest they crack open a history book and then let them go
| back to stroking their own ego.
|
| JDs never really went the same path but did take up this odd
| practice of using "Esquire." Elsewhere in the world Esq is
| typically used to formally address young gentlemen without any
| other title. If your teenage son gets a bank account in the UK
| their the statements will come addressed to Joe Blogs Esq. To
| anyone with broader worldwide exposure to titles, this makes the
| use of the title by lawyers in the US hilarious because it makes
| the person look like they're taking the title of some kid in the
| UK.
| Balgair wrote:
| > To anyone with broader worldwide exposure to titles, this
| makes the use of the title by lawyers in the US hilarious
| because it makes the person look like they're taking the title
| of some kid in the UK.
|
| If we're talking about lawyers and barristers with hilarious
| conventions, then I think the UK still takes the cake, what
| with those comical white curly wigs.
|
| And yes, I know it was changed in 2008 to allow them not to
| wear the wig under certain circumstances. It's still absurdly
| silly though.
| OJFord wrote:
| I think it actually marks quite an important distinction from
| US judges - they are not personalities, they are not
| individuals, they are not making some personal judgement,
| they will not be on television. They merely adopt a costume
| of office, and carry out the duties of that office.
| tryptophan wrote:
| >So for all the reasons above when any physician tries to
| suggest that a physician is the only "real doctor" you can roll
| your eyes and suggest they crack open a history book and then
| let them go back to stroking their own ego.
|
| I think you are misunderstanding what their issue is. They
| aren't mad about people calling themselves 'doctors' in general
| society, but in a medical setting. You have nurses, PAs,
| chiropractors, naturopaths all calling themselves a 'doctor' in
| a medical setting, all trying to associate themselves with the
| rigor and expertise an MD would grant.
|
| As to the origin of the title in a medical setting, you may be
| right, but it has been used that way for a long time now. Being
| pedantic about its usage isn't helpful when there are lots of
| bad actors trying to confuse people by referring to its
| commonly understood meaning.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| The parent common was surely taking about people with PhD or
| MD together on a room, both entitled to use the title "Dr"
| before their name, with MD half jokingly claiming that
| they're the "real" doctor. Most of their comment basically
| says so, plus they seem to be in the UK, where other
| professionals like nurses would never try to call themselves
| doctors.
|
| Although, in my experience, it's more often the PhD owner
| claiming that the MD is the real doctor!
| joegahona wrote:
| As a reader, I prefer "Dr." before a name to mean medical
| doctor. Someone with a Phd in something else is "Joe Blow,
| PhD." This is Associated Press style, I believe.
| JCM9 wrote:
| You bring up an interesting angle which is that the title
| inflation thing in the US now has secondary and tertiary
| implications. Optometrists call themselves "doctors" as do
| chiropractors and others. Increasingly it seems medical
| facilities just go back to the root and put someone's degree
| in giant letters on their badge. "MD" "RN" etc. And the
| public at large increasingly just calls all these people
| "your healthcare provider" instead of "your doctor."
|
| In essence physicians are upset at others (optometrists,
| chiropractors, and such) doing exactly what medical school
| graduates did in previous generations... insist on people
| calling them "doctoral to gain more recognition with the
| public at large. When you know the history it's all quite
| amusing.
|
| However if random people are running in providing unqualified
| expertise to patients in a medical practice though that
| suggests there are far bigger problems to be dealt with than
| title games. The "doctor" thing is just a red herring.
| [deleted]
| Spivak wrote:
| I typically just use doctor to mean "person who takes
| primary responsibility for medical treatment" in any
| setting. They're the person in the room who has decision
| making power and responsibility for those decisions. I
| didn't even realize that people were weird about using
| doctor to refer to people without an MD. Because DOs are
| definitely doctors too, why not an OD or DDS?
| epmaybe wrote:
| DDS at least in the US typically do part of medical
| school including clinical clerkships and have a residency
| to complete. Maybe you're thinking of DMD?
| ardy42 wrote:
| >> So for all the reasons above when any physician tries to
| suggest that a physician is the only "real doctor" you can
| roll your eyes and suggest they crack open a history book and
| then let them go back to stroking their own ego.
|
| > As to the origin of the title in a medical setting, you may
| be right, but it has been used that way for a long time now.
| Being pedantic about its usage isn't helpful when there are
| lots of bad actors trying to confuse people by referring to
| its commonly understood meaning.
|
| I wouldn't exactly call it pedantic, just wrong. It's little
| more than appeal to the remote past as true and correct,
| which treats and changes or innovations since then as
| illegitimate.
|
| Also, IIRC, the physician = "real doctor" thing is often just
| a reflection of the respect and familiarity that ordinary
| people have for physicians, not some kind of pompousness by
| physicians themselves.
| Lio wrote:
| I always find it funny that surgeons in the UK insist on being
| called Mr/Mrs; they're no common or garden doctor.
|
| No siree, nope, they're hairdressers from the Royal College of
| _Barber_ Surgeons no less and you will address them as such. :P
| jhunter1016 wrote:
| This is why I love weekend HN. Articles like this don't often
| seem to make the front page on the week days, but they are
| fantastic.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I've always found it quite funny how common it is in the US to be
| the 2nd or 3rd e.g. "Peter II Smith". I haven't seen this
| anywhere in Europe besides in history books for kings etc.
|
| It looks like one of those "need to compensate for lack of
| history" things.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| In certain parts of the US (mostly Texas, I think), it is
| common to give your first born son the same name as you. In
| that case, using Sr. and Jr., or numerals becomes a practical
| matter of identifying which Peter Smith you are talking about.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I like that "Senior/Junior" thing but I always wondered if
| people actually say "Hi, I'm Peter the third...".
| mindslight wrote:
| IME (n=2), people don't really use "senior/junior/third"
| when introducing themselves. Disambiguation is done with
| nicknames (eg John vs Johnny), and the titles only come out
| when it makes sense to talk technicalities.
| cascom wrote:
| I've never heard it, but the thirds often end with
| nicknames like Trip (as in triple) or Tres (south Texas / 3
| in Spanish) or if your in south Louisiana the the prefix of
| petit (little, eg Jean and petit Jean) is appended to the
| junior vs the senior
| rayiner wrote:
| > This was the same time that the idea of a gentry emerged in
| England: People who are not noble, but certainly not peasants,
| either. They were people worthy of being ranked above somebody in
| the social hierarchy. So esquire had come to suggest moderate
| respectability with a dash of prestigious servitude.
|
| This part is on point to a lot of contemporary society.
| cwwc wrote:
| > "It's something where, in my personal experience, I would never
| use it. It would be horrifically pretentious to do that."
|
| I've only ever seen lawyers from bad schools use esquire, to be
| blunt. If you've gone to HYS, no way you'll use this.
| [deleted]
| Veen wrote:
| Because you use the school you went to as a class signifier
| rather than a title.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| On a separate note, I don't understand why socially we've come to
| associate one type of doctorate (usually an M.D.?), for a
| physician, as the only type of "Doctor" when we're talking about
| a physician. I assume it's just a historical convention?
|
| I have no skin in this game, but today it seems rather rude to
| not consider other doctors, "Doctors," but OK to consider just
| physicians, _colloquially a "Doctor"_, a "Doctor."
|
| If I had a Ph.D. you'd damn well be sure I wanted people to
| acknowledge my doctorate, even if it was in something else, such
| as mathematics, law, or education.
| underseacables wrote:
| There's a lot of professions that desperately want to be seen
| as medical doctors, but they lack the training and education to
| do so. A lot of healthcare licensure is built around that
| ideal, but if you give someone an exclusive scope of practice,
| with lots of fancy titles, through a little mirror action they
| could make themselves appear as doctors. Probably the worst of
| this is the registered dietitians.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's all historical convention.
|
| My personal feeling is that it's perfectly understandable to
| highlight relevant research doctorates in a research/academic
| setting. Yes, it's a status thing but it's understandable.
| Otherwise? Eh. Why PhDs and certain other "doctorates" and not
| Masters and other post-undergraduate degrees that may (or may
| not) also involve substantial original research?
| usrusr wrote:
| Of all the people who have lived in the centuries since the
| term doctor got established, a very large majority hasn't ever
| interacted with a doctor that wasn't of the medical kind. From
| this perspective any weirdness surrounding the term/terms
| becomes rather unsurprising.
| swebs wrote:
| This is a poorly written article coated in the author's hamfisted
| rant on modern US politics. The Wikipedia page is much more
| straightforward and in-depth.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire
| D13Fd wrote:
| I thought it was interesting and it accurately describes the
| use as kind of embarrassing to other attorneys, in a way the
| Wikipedia article doesn't. I didn't see anything particularly
| political about it other than the last line (about memes
| invading the "halls of American power").
| pc86 wrote:
| The first several paragraphs are ranting about Dr. Biden and
| sexism.
| D13Fd wrote:
| They are not ranting and, honestly, didn't come across as
| all that political to me. Those paragraphs are referencing
| the controversy as a lead-in to an article about the use of
| esquire, which has little to do with the First Lady. At
| best you could say that the references to current politics
| are distracting.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I didn't read that as a rant at all. I read that as giving
| context to debate over titles using a recent example in the
| news. How was it a rant?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I don't know about _rant_ , but the thick coating of political
| implication throughout was distasteful. The Wikipedia article
| has less character, in a good way.
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