"Leader DeLay"??? What's up with that?

[Mark A. Mandel]

Fred writes:
    >>>>>

When I moved to Connecticut in the late 1980s I was surprised to find that
many people in the legal community here used the expression "Attorney
Smith," which I had not heard before.  The motivation is obvious: to mimic
the "make-no-mistake-I'm-someone-important" identification that is
standard for physicians.

I don't know whether this is a regionalism or not.  I suspect this
locution is also well established in the African-American community.
  <<<<<

I first heard it, to my surprise, from the secretary of a lawyer in
Massachusetts (Metropolitan Boston area).

And Barbara Need contributes:
    >>>>>
At the University of Chicago, professors are (traditionally) called
Mr or Mrs/Ms/Miss, not Doctor, not Professor.
  <<<<<

At St. John's College in Annapolis and Santa Fe, all members of the faculty
are called tutors and are addressed as Mr. or Mrs./Ms./Miss Jones. And, in
class, so are the students. In the coffee shop you (i.e., students) are Joe
and Jane to each other, but in tutorial, laboratory, seminar, lecture,
preceptorial, or other academic situation, all address each other in the
same terms. The purpose is twofold: the form of respect both for its own
sake and as a reminder of the attitude. All are equally deserving of
respect; and no matter how fierce the battle of thoughts, it is never the
person himself or herself who is to be attacked. In my experience, it works.

-- Mark A. Mandel, St. John's College, Annapolis, class of 1969
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]