Comment by wegs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wegs | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.)

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

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program used to offer a similar list, it doesn't seem to anymore though.

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.

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