doctor/professor/etc

[Roger Shuy]

When I first started teaching graduate courses in the seventies, hoping to
develop a spririt of egalitarianism and holding the fond hope that as we
worked on linguistic problems together we would reach a somewhat equal
plane, I suggested that my students call me by my first name. A few of my
American students did this, at least in my earlier days of teaching, but the
idea was a complete flop with my foreign students, who couldn't seem to bear
to be  so informal.  By the time I reached my fifties, even the American
students gave up even trying. I guess I couldn't pull this one off, no
matter how hard I tried. Maybe it wasn't a very good idea in the first
place.

roger