I find it slightly amusing that you offer the fact that the queen is not in an elected position as a reason why she should be accorded more respect, and not less.
I believe it has been established in other threads that although her family has a name, and although she has decreed that (at least certain of) her descendants may use Windsor (or is it Mountbatten-Windsor?) as a surname, the queen herself has no actual surname.
So I guess that leaves you with Ma’am, Your Majesty, Elisabeth, Liz, or Brenda. Take your pick.
I think it would be rude to call her Mrs. Windsor, since that’s not her prefered name. It would be rude to call someone Paul David Hewson when they have another name they prefer. If someone in a social tells me to refer to them by a particular name or nickname, I’m not going to insist on using their last name when they ask me to use their first name, or their nickname, or their middle name. So if the Queen says, “Call me Betsy”, then I’ll call her Betsy. If she wants to be called Prince, Madonna, Edge, Sting, or Bono, then that’s what I’ll call her. If I run into John Wayne, I wouldn’t call him Marion Morrison, would I? Unless he asked me to.
I would follow whatever the appropriate protocol. I believe (though I may be mistaken) that standard protocol is that US citizens do not bow to foreign heads of state (nor to domestic ones, for that matter). If this is so, I expect that HM and her staff are aware of this and respect it. I don’t know about other aspects of etiquette, such as not turning ones back on her, but I would certainly follow whatever advice I was given.
Of course, it would be complicated in my case, since although I was raised in the US and have only a US passport, I was born in the United Kingdom and so technically have British citizenship as well as American. Maybe I’d just sort of nod my head.
In a sense, following protocol and treating her with all due respect and deference would be the same as A for me. I don’t follow some one-size-fits-all code of etiquette. On the contrary, I generally try to treat people however they expect to be treated, unless I’m trying to be confrontational. If I met an older Japanese gentleman, I would bow. If I met the leader of a cult who wanted to be called “Most Blessed Holy Perfect Googolly Moogoly” I’d do it unless I had a specific beef with him, even though I’d be smirking inwardly. If I met the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who expected to be addressed as such, I’d either ignore him or spit in his face, but I wouldn’t think I was being polite–I’d be making a point.
Just missed the edit window, but I forgot that I wanted to say this.
Modern technology? I knew she was a mechanic, but a computer buff? Does Her Majesty surf the internet? Could Her Majesty be a Doper? :eek: Do we have any likely candidates? And what is the protocol between a crowned head of state and a Perfect Master?
Absolutely, I agree. Things like “please” and “thank you” and “would you care to have a seat” and “the oysters are particularly divine today” separate us from the rest of the apes. But I’m asking why, specifically, the set of rules and protocol around that particular woman are, what was it you said, “there for a reason.” Why does Elizabeth Rex need more social grease than the rest of us?
Me, I think things like that are just fun, that’s all, and so I’ll play along. I also don uncomfortably hot garb in 100 degree heat to kneel and scrape to a woman in Bristol, Wisconsin named Mary somethingorother who’s merely playacting the role of another Elizabeth who’s been dead for hundreds of years.
Even as much as I vehemently detest the current President, I would still address him as Mr. President if I were to meet him. Calling him “George” just wouldn’t be right.
Now if either Queen Elizabeth or President Bush were in the same room as me and asked for my opinion on something, I’d be absolutely frank. I’m not going to pretend that their crap smelled like roses. But I would still address them by their appropriate titles.
I read that she loves to play her grandsons’ Wii, so that right there makes her more hip to the modern world than I am!
Word was she owned one of the first Blackberries in the UK. Or was it an iPhone? I forget which. (But she actually *uses *it, not just held it for a photo shoot.) She does have her own email, which is more than my own 80something year old grandmother has achieved.
But as the elected leader of your lodge, you would expect to be addressed as Worshipful Master in formal or ceremonial circumstances. When you’re having a beer after a meeting, I’m sure it’s “Bob,” for everyone, but in the context of presiding over a lodge meeting…?
But her position is still the result of the consent of the governed. She’s said she’d dissovle the Monarchy and step down if Parliament asked her to. So she’s not elected, but she holds her position by consent of the citizens.
Exactly! Now you’re starting to get it!
Were I formally addressing the House of Lords, I would do so with the proper decorum. But someone introduces me at the pub to “Prime Minister Lord Joseph Tinklebottom”, I’ll shake his hand and introduce myself - “Joseph? Bob, gladtameetcha”
She embodies a sovereign state (not mine), but that is a fiction that exists only in the minds of those who subscribe to it. “Crown” and “commoner” are also fictions that mean absolutely nothing unless you voluntarily participate in that delusion.
To the extent that the queen has any non-fictional, non-delusional status, it is because the British government chooses to permit, ratify, direct, etc., her to do so. Thus, she performs governmental functions; she is no different from a government official and is due no more deference than one.
In other words, she’s subordinate to the citizenry.
Regina.
You make it sound so dirty! 
This thread has left me wondering what people mean when they used the word “deference.” I mean, most of us, if we were to meet the Queen, would have maybe a minute or two to interact with her. Even if we were to, say, dine with her, where would the “deference” come into play? I suppose in some ways I would defer to any 82-year-old lady I was dining with…in the sense that I would be sure she was seated before I was, etc. I wouldn’t curtsey to her, fbut I wouldn’t call her by her first name, either. I would probably call her by whatever the protocol experts say I should, because it would likely be something like “ma’am,” which is what I call older ladies anyway.
If the person was younger than me, I would find it a little more problematic, because I think it’s engrained in me that they younger person should be the one to treat an elder with respect, not the other way around. But as long as it seemed just like basic politeness, it wouldn’t bother me too much.
I think that to me, expecting people to act mannerly and perhaps a little overly-formal with foreign heads of state is like expecting them to treat a foreign flag with respect. Sure, someone else’s flag is just a piece of cloth, and it might not mean anything to me, but if it means something to someone else and represents their country, I have an obligation to respect their feelings.
Being a west coast American, I know rather little of the Windsor’s. But from what little I have heard, a lot of them (the Queen included) do a lot of “behind the scenes” work in charity and diplomacy. (Like Princess Diana championing the Anti-landmine cause.) They don’t go around publicy patting themselves on the back for it, so I can see where one might think that Her Majesty just sits around all day watching polo games.
When my wife was in college she used to travel in the same social circle as Prince Albert of Monaco. The first time she met him at a party she gave him her coat to hang up and asked him to get her a drink. 
Absolutely. Royal protocol does not require obeisance from anyone who is not a subject of the monarchy in question. Americans should behave toward the Queen with the same respect they would show any other foreign head of state, but bowing or curtseying (for example) are not required, since those are marks of allegiance, which the American does not owe.
Calling a monarch “Your Majesty” is not a mark of allegiance, incidentally, any more than calling an American senator “The Honourable” means you owe allegiance to him or her. However, as pointed out, after you’re introduced to the Queen it’s proper (for subjects and non-subjects) to call her “ma’am” (rhymes with ham).
I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread, mostly as to why I posted in the first place, and then why the subject tends to raise hackles, mine especially. And so I offer this as a possible explanation as to why some of us are indeed irreverent social misfits.
It was while re-reading *The State of Africa * this morning that the realization suddenly occurred to me. It’s not about respect, it’s about fear. It’s not about the person, it’s about the institution.
Monarchist protocol, for the most part, is based on fear, either historically, or currently. When I read about the likes Bokassa, Eyedema, Amin, Nkrumah, Selassie, Mengistu, Nguema, Obote, Mugabe and many others in a long list of tyrants, dictators and emperors, I realize that my anger rages against the institution and the concomitant power it wields, and not necessarily against the person. One can indeed be a King or Queen and rule with wisdom, grace, humility and kindness, but more often than not, power corrupts and the reverse is true. The monarch becomes a tyrant, ruling by patronage and decree, demanding absolute obedience and deference, with dire consequences for even slight transgressions.
The current Queen is quite possibly a fabulously wealthy yet gormless old biddy who swung a spanner or two in her youth for a noble cause. I don’t know, I don’t follow her history, have never met her, don’t intend to, and thus actually don’t know her at all. And her actual powers now are quite possibly so watered down and irrelevant to the person in the street that if someone didn’t perform the curtsy in just the right way nothing would actually come of it.
But at the heart of the matter lies the protocol. A protocol originally and historically designed to subject, oppress, humiliate and conquer. It is for this reason I remain defiant.