“Dr.” is a weird title, because it is earned, as opposed to Mr. or Ms. which come with gender assignment. So refusing to use Dr. can feel tantamount to ignoring the accomplishment even though that’s not at all what’s going on. I think most people either don’t care or remember the rule that professional titles are not to be used socially (outside of addressing envelopes), but every now and again someone gets confused, or is just a jerk.
I really like using Dr., thus my username here, but even in a professional context it almost never comes up except in my work email signature (and even then it’s Ph.D. rather than calling myself Dr.).
Doctors - by which I mean physicians - are just about the only people I both refer to and address using their titles, and only if our relationship is purely professional. I’m not sure why.
Outside of school, by which I mean primary and secondary school, not college or university, that ship has pretty much sailed this side of the pond.
I’ve met one guy who insisted on me calling him Mr. Surname on my old allotment site. He was pushing 80, I was in my late 20s at the time. The lady on the plot between us, who was in her 60s and had known him 20 years pretty much rolled her eyes and called him a daft old coot when I referred to him by surname to her- which I had to, seeing as he hadn’t told me his first name.
I work in a research facility where a lot of people are either Dr. or Professor; ID badges don’t have the title, office door plates and email sigs do, and no-one uses titles except when introducing a visitor they’re trying to impress, or occasionally as part of jokey nicknames. Some of the international students find this very difficult when they first arrive. I’ll use a title the first time I send an email to someone I don’t know, but I’ll only keep using it if they sign off using it as well, which is rare and mostly people from other cultures.
I do have a physician friend who is universally referred to as ‘Dr. Firstname’ socially, but that’s because she has a really similar name to another friend in the group- same first, same middle, same first 3 letters of surname (the other one is pretty universally called ‘Other Firstname’- she even introduces herself that way).
This is Japan so most adults are addressed by Last Name + San, although males younger than you may be addressed by Last Name + Kun, depending on a whole bunch of complicated rules. In companies and other formal organizations, the name is used with the job title (such as manager, director, president, etc.) or the person is called just by the title.
Some Japanese use first names among friends, and this is more common among women than men.
Western people tend to use first names even in Japanese, and will be called that + san.
This message board is the only place I expect people to call me “Mr.”
I think the last time that anyone in real life used Mister for me was when I was teaching a continuing education class for other librarians. And even then, it was done in a questioning tone of voice, as if inviting me to correct it. Which I did, saying, “You can call me [First Name].”
Two stories:
I do community theater, and there is one fellow actor who has a Ph.D. in chemistry. He insists on being billed in the programs as “Dr. Full Name.”
When I was in college, one of the professors was named David LastName. One time, when we had an exam, a friend of mine wrote the professor’s name on his exam blue book as “Dr. Dave LastName.” When the professor handed it back to him, there was a big red circle around that, and the handwritten note, “No one, least of all you, young man, calls me Dave.” I guess that settled that.
We had quite a kerfuffle here a few years ago about professional titles used or not used in social settings.
The precipitating event was that Pres Biden’s wife Jill has a PhD and worked in academia. At some point, shortly after he won election, the RW propaganda-sphere decided to refer to her as Ms. or Mrs.; never as Dr.
Which ignited a lot of anger, along various axes of right / left, highbrow / lowbrow, sexist / not sexist, formal / informal, and traditional / not traditional.
One of the lawyers I work with is named Bill. Another one of the paralegals is a Southerner, and so naturally she calls him Mr. Bill. I couldn’t stop chuckling every time she did it, so finally I had to explain the reference to her (she is a LOT younger than me and so the reference is literally from before she was born).
I always found it amusing that my late grandmother (a thoroughly South Carolina woman born in the early 1920s who made it to 95) would address things like Christmas cards to my parents in the form of “Dr. And Mrs. Dad’s Full Name”. Good etiquette in the South in the 1950s, I’m sure. Not quite the same in the Southwest in the 2000s.
If we talk about personal preferences, I literally don’t expect anyone on the face of the Earth to call me Mr. Dzhugashvili (let’s say that was my surname). As far as I’m concerned, anyone can call me themapleleaf. This includes any child, as I don’t think children owe their elders more respect than their elders owe them.
You can call me Mister, Sir, or Mr. Dzhugashvili if you don’t know I’m called themapleleaf and in some situations when you really don’t know me and it’s customary (you’re a judge and I’m in your courtroom, you write me a formal letter for the first time), but I’d rather you not once we get to making proper introductions.
If we talk about what I simply expect to happen, well, were I back in Canada, I would expect to be called themapleleaf by most people except in the case above, including my boss - and probably to refer to them by their first names too in this day and age. I’ve spent most of my adult life outside Canada, and have had only four office jobs when in Canada, none lasting more than 6 months, and in all but one, I recall addressing everyone and all my superiors by their first names, including the owner of the company at the last job – and he was quite a douchebag by the way. The only exception was I think my highest superior, the head of a Quebec government agency, during a summer job, I recall calling him “Monsieur A.” – but I had extremely little contact with him. I think my colleague, another student, did refer to him by his first name.
I wanted to be a teacher in Canada but failed twice to be accepted to teachers’ college due to high demand (in 2001 and 2002). I had a number of teaching-related experiences where I volunteered in classrooms with kids ranging from 7 to 18. IIRC, the teacher introduced me as “themapleleaf” in most of those classrooms, but in at least one (a mixed Grade 2 / 3 class), the teacher (a competent but strict older lady) introduced me as “Mr. Dzhugashvili”, and that’s how the students called me in each class.
I didn’t think about it much at the time, but were I to be a teacher in North America, I think I would prefer to be addressed as themapleleaf by my students (it wouldn’t be a deal breaker but I would prefer it.) If I requested that, though would it be allowed? Would I have trouble with the school if I did that?
I now live in the Czech Republic, where (as in the Swiss example above), there is still a strong distinction between formal and informal forms of address. In government offices or at the doctor’s, they would never use your first name; this would be considered very bad form (I don’t agree with this, I’m just saying it’s how things are done). Moreover, if you’re not on a first name basis with someone, you always use the “plural you” when addressing a person. That is, you say “vy” to them (as in “vous” in French or “Sie” in German), not “ty”, the singular you. At work, practice varies from workplace to workplace. In more liberal white-collar enterprises (and typically in blue collar jobs) everyone says “ty” to each other across the company hierarchy (it may be even official company policy), but in the average company, there is no policy about it and typically closer colleagues agree on using the singular “ty” while colleagues who don’t know each other well keep using “vy”, (nowadays normally with the first name but there are exceptions) unless the “socially superior” (e.g. significantly older) colleague offers the use of the singular “ty” and it is considered very bad form to offer the use of the singular “you” to your boss, though many bosses will offer it nowadays.
Being from a Serbian immigrant family and multilingual, I have been familiar with this singular / plural dichotomy since early childhood. I disapprove of this custom, viz what I wrote below on a diferent thread:
I don’t wish to be addressed by the “plural you” by anyone in any language, but as things stand in the Czech Republic, if you request the use of the singular you in most places (cafes, restaurants, shops, etc.) with certain specific exceptions, people will be consternated, if not insulted. The established custom I am up against is very strong. Interestingly, there are places where this is no longer the case. In Spain, for example, it’s common to be addressed as “tu” instead of the more formal “el” nowadays, and last year I experienced this in person on a vacation to Basque country. Moreover, when me, my American friend, and his Basque friend crossed the border into Bayonne, Southern France, the Basque friend made a point of deliberately addressing the young French waiter with “vous” to show him respect – and the waiter calmly responded “I prefer ‘tu’”. Except in certain kinds of business, this would be unthinkable for a waiter or shop assistant to do in the Czech Republic.
BTW, as an English as a second language teacher in the Czech Republic, I mostly work with adults. On the occasions when I have had a child student, we were always on a first-name basis (as is common among language teachers from the West here, often even if they work in a public school, which I don’t – I cooperate with language schools).
Ha! I was just going to say the same thing. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
I think the only time I’ve referred to anyone other than my doctors by something other than their first name is a particularly cantankerous client at work who insists on being called Mr. (Lastname").
My nieces call me Aunt (Firstname) and I have a goofy co-worker who calls me Ms. (Firstname).
Thanks for the welcome. This does seem like a fun grown-up environment. Yeah, I misspoke regarding “female priests.” I know there are none. Shame.
I was raised as an Episcopalian and even so, it got confusing. As a child we addressed our ‘minister’ as Reverend Squires. Even my elders used it. I just now read that’s inaccurate and wrong. Hmm? Later, as a youngster I was an altar boy, we called them ‘acolytes’ (more nomenclature confusion) and referred to the priest as Father. There was some old-timer retired priest that helped out. He was referred to as The Right Reverend, or at times, The Most Honorable Right Reverend! Oy, oy oy. I moved west and into the heart of Lutheran County. They use Pastor. They even had LADY pastors! 0_0
I’ve since become an atheist, and life has become exponentially easier!
Also, I wanted to let you know I love your motto: Carpe Diem Tomorrow. I am SO swiping that. Thanks.
I was raised in the heart of Yankee country, by stodgy old Pilgrims. If a child referred to an adult in my presence by their first name I think all three of us would have become apoplectic.
One of my brothers had (he died some years ago) a PhD and could properly be called “doctor.” He never, ever fussed about that though and no one ever referred to him as “doctor.” (He had a doctorate in physics).
ETA: Technically, aren’t all lawyers (with some very few rare exceptions) “doctors?” Isn’t a JD degree a doctorate of jurisprudence?
In the USA, but in the UK, Canada, and other places in the Commonwealth, the basic degree is called an “LLB” (Bachelor of Laws). In Canada, as is typical for the JD in the USA, it’s a three-year professional degree taken after your undergraduate bachelor degree in any other field.
