Halford wrote:
Of course, popular culture always uses the image of the 'absent-minded professor' as a buffoon,etc. or 'the mad scientist' and so forth and this filters down. Also, calling teachers and profs by first names is always a bad idea but this comes from bosses dressing down on Fridays and calling everyone by their first name and allowing you to call them that way. Only a few Doctors(medical) I know still want you to call them 'Dr'. It comes from our wanting to bring everything and everybody to the same level and this is going to happen as globalization takes place wage-wise! But that is another topic, also fraught with peril! Enough ranting for now!
Halford at
http://arnis.homestead.com
Medical doctors may not go by "Dr" anymore, but academia/research is still full of them. I know quite a few who have been struck by the "PhD-GOD" syndrome, and insist on the use of "Dr" in front of their name and ", PhD" after their name.
Case in point, Dr. Glasheen's quote:
In all seriousness though, credentials are important in life. When they are legitimate and are bestowed by reputable organizations, they imply a certain basic level of competence, and often a license to operate in various venues. That's where the titles come in handy.
Spoken like a true PhD!
The enculturation of titles is definitely more programmed in some cultures than others, particularly with certain titles of authority. In graduate school I did have some professors who wanted us to use their first names or knicknames (JP for example, as one professor insisted everyone call him). American students of most ethnicities had no trouble with that, JP it is. Who had the most trouble? You guessed it, international students from East Asia, especially Japan. Although after a while one Japanese student did finally break out of that mold, somewhat...she changed from calling him "Dr Jones" to "Dr. JP". A reasonable conciliation. To my knowledge could never bring herself to call him just "JP".
