... Note title use

[Francis M. Hult]

I've noticed in Sweden that the title 'Dr' is often used in English texts where
academics are listed.  It seems that some feel that their Swedish titles, like
lektor or docent, don't translate well (esp. in relation to the US context
where the title Prof is common at various levels--at Lund University, for
example, only someone who holds a chair has the title professor).  In practice,
nearly all (except those in category 4 below) university instructors are on a
first name basis with their students (grad and undergrad).

Francis


Quoting Mike Salovesh <salovex at wpo.cso.niu.edu>:

> YMMV -- or, rather, your local dialect may vary.
>
> I was raised on some old U of Chicago traditions where the preferred terms
> of reference/address were "Mr.",
> "Mrs.", "Miss", or (latterly) "Ms."  "Professor X" was an extremely rare
> usage. (It often was reserved for those who held named endowed chairs.) As
> for "Doctor", there were four reasons for using the term. The person so
> labeled might be
>
> 1.  some kind of medicine man or medicine woman.  (Medical doctor or
> dentist, usually, but various other bedoctored curing people and medical
> -ologists also qualified.) That's because people in the curing professions
> insist on the title.  (A recent stay in a British hospital taught me that
> senior professors in a medical school setting there are called "Mr. X", a
> title that outranks a mere "Dr. X".)
>
> 2.  someone who just successfully defended a Ph. D. dissertation, in which
> case the appropriate greeting was "Congratulations, Doctor!" Usually, you
> only said that once.
>
> 3.  someone who was both a leading scholar (Nobel prize winner, say),
> gifted with a lovable personality, and so awe-inspiring that there just had
> to be some way of showing honor in a term of address. Or, anyhow, two out
> of those three. Enrico Fermi was "Doctor Fermi". (In the anthropology
> department, Robert Redfield often was called "Dr. Redfield". You could
> measure students' progress through the department by when they moved from
> "Mr. Tax" (or "Tax" as term of reference) to "Sol Tax" to "Sol"; "Eggan/Mr.
> Eggan", "Fred Eggan", "Fred", etc. I don't recall hearing anyone say "Bob
> Redfield" or addressing him as "Bob".)
>
> 4.  somebody who was snottily overreaching, in which case saying "Dr. X"
> meant "And who the hell do you think you are, DOCTOR?"
>
> That accounts for two features of my dialect down through the years. First,
> I don't like being called "Doctor", since I don't fit those first three
> categories and I don't want to be put in the fourth. Second, I am
> punctilious about calling any insufferably pompous professorial idiot "Dr.
> X" -- repeatedly, just to make the point. (The best part of that is that
> they never realize how deeply I'm insulting them.)
>
> --  mike salovesh     <m-salovesh-9 at alumni.uchicago.edu>     PEACE !!!
>
> P.S.: I take that back. When I'm making appointments with traditional
> medicine practitioners, I call myself "Dr. Salovesh" simply because that
> makes it more likely that I'll get what I want. Those who work in clinics,
> hospitals, or in any other setting where medical doctors practice their
> arts are used to snapping to attention when talking to anyone called
> "Doctor".
>