What Does the Title ‘Esquire’ Mean, Anyway?
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Although, in my experience, it's more often the PhD owner claiming that the MD is the real doctor!
We aren't the only language that has one word for multiple professions, like sensei means teacher OR medical doctor in japanese.
Those are not common words for people possessing a PhD, and that's good because they are totally inappropriate words.
A PhD is a type of qualification (a very unusual one, in that it requires original contribution to knowledge rather than just learning existing knowledge, but it's a qualification nonetheless). "Professor", in total contrast, is essentially a job title. It's very possible for someone to have a PhD and not be a professor. The most common case is where a PhD holder has simply not stayed in acamedia at all; actually this probably describes the vast majority of PhD holders (by simple maths of the number of PhD students per academic). Even for people in academia there is typically a gap before you get the formal title professor (here in the UK it historically goes PhD student, postdoc, lecturer (the first one of these that is a permanent job), reader, professor; in the US it's a bit different and sometimes you have someone called "associate professor" but not be entitled to use the "Professor" as a title before their name, but there's still certainly a potential gap in the middle).
"Scientist" has many of the above problems but is less of a formal term so could maybe be slightly more widely used e.g. maybe a postdoc or someone working in certain types of industry could be called scientist. But it's still basically a job title so it doesn't work for someone that gets a PhD and then becomes a carpenter. It also has the opposite problem that someone could potentially be a scientist without holding a PhD, so if you specifically want to refer to that then it's imprecise. But it has the much larger problem that it only applies to science! It would be very odd to call someone a scientist because they hold a PhD in modern art or literature, or even mathematics or economics.
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.
No siree, nope, they’re hairdressers from the Royal College of Barber Surgeons no less and you will address them as such. :P
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.
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.
> This is where esquires come into play. The word itself derives from Old French, and in turn from Latin, where it means something like “shield-holder.” In the 1200s and 1300s in England, a variety of languages were used, so such figures might be referred to as the Latin armiger (“arms-holder,”) or scutifer (“shield-bearer”), or the French escuier, which became “esquire.” These terms all refer to roughly similar people. This role was generally considered moderately prestigious for young men of some wealth, but at its core it was a service job. You carry a knight’s stuff, tend to his horses, that kind of thing. “Esquire” and “squire” were names for the same gig for a few hundred years.
>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...).
(tl;dr it's a reference to a watch ad.)
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!)
Plenty of professions with equivalent training have no honorific (even if they do list various letters after their names).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
The same is true of an M.D. though with four years. They’re both doctorates.
Still, calling the MD a doctorate is questionable.
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?
Shouldn't we call her 'Professor' then, since that outranks 'Doctor'?
“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.”
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.
In practice, these are tenure track positions, and not all teaching staff have them. For example, as a postdoc, I might teach a course at a college nearby. They might refer to me as "Adjunct professor", which is a temporary non-tenure-track position.
Some students? All students.
The usage of "professor" in the US is much like the usage of "lisp" in programming. There are many lisps (scheme, elisp,...), but there is only one Lisp (that is, Common Lisp).
Similarly, "professor" does indeed mean "Full professor". But students and staff in most universities call nearly all faculty "Professor X", whether they are assistant, associate, full, emeritus, adjunct, term, or whatnot. Indeed many US institutions have since invented official titles for, for example, instructors or adjunct faculty, which explicitly include the word "professor".
I became a professor a month after I got my PhD. Thus for my whole life I had been Sean, then for one month I was Dr. Luke, and then suddenly I was Prof. Luke. It has never been comfortable. I let the undergrads and some MS students call me Professor Luke -- I can't stop them -- but the PhDs, particularly those who are coauthors with me on papers, generally call me Sean.
Students, yes; staff, no; at least this has not been my experience, and outside of some students referring to any teaching faculty as "Prof. X", I have not seen it used professionally. In a professional setting, an associate prof. would be introduced simply as "Dr. X", rather than "Associate Prof. X". I have never heard anybody short of a full professor be called "Prof. X" in a professional setting. The students I understand as them misunderstanding the nomenclature.
And yes, staff also refer to all instructional faculty as "Professor".
This goes not only for my current institution (GMU), but for several other major universities with which I have had experience, as well as major conferences and other academic gatherings. I think it is the norm.
Is it possible that you're seeing something else because of the culture stemming from a different area of academic study? I am in computer science.
I should clarify that: by "title" here I mean "a thing people are called", as in "hey, Associate Prof. X, what's up?". As opposed to an "official" job title.
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.”
So, just like in Europe? “Mr. Prime Minister”, “M. le Président”, “Frau Bundeskanzlerin”, “Herr Bundeskanzler”, ...
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Other people are going to find it confusing and embarrassing though.
> 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.
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.
What are they known by when they stop being "junior"?
> Wasn't the 1st Baronet Thatcher created in 1990?
True. I think the article is confusing the term with Hereditary Peerage, the most recent of which was indeed created in 1984, the Earl of Stockton. By contrast, a baronetcy is not a peerage.
Interestingly enough in francophone countries lawyers have their own commonly used honorific "master" or in french "maître" (Mᵉ). 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.
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.
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.
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! :)
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.
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.
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.
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.)
"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.
My girlfriend would get emails starting with "Sehr geehrte Frau Magistra XYZ,..."
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.
Except when it comes to military worship.
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.
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.
You mean, "the clergy, lawyers and physicians?" :)
This part is on point to a lot of contemporary society.
I'm so tired of this. Most of the websites I'd like to visit, AND most of the websites that I find on HN, are now a privacy/cookies hell.
It looks like one of those "need to compensate for lack of history" things.
>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
"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.
I guess we'll overturn those conventions now for the sake of politics.
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.
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?
Sorry couldn't help it.
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.
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.)
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
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.
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?