What prompted the question was the various forms of address I was seeing used in the comments section of a scholar's blog. Some people were addressing him by his given name, which I would do with my online friends who have their doctorates. The people who were using titles though, seemed to shy away from "Dr." - in favor of "Prof." and the like. It confused me.

Ha. My boss went upstairs - someone up there burned some toast. (I just didn't think the smell could carry so strongly from up there.)

seemed to shy away from "Dr." - in favor of "Prof." and the like. It confused me.

He is a professor, I'm assuming?

Oddly, I called my mother Dr. Herlastname the other day (okay, that's not odd--I like to keep her on her toes). Buf for the first time she corrected me to Professor Herlastname.

But she's been a PhD much longer than she's had tenure. ~40 years vs. ~4. So the latter probably has more shine on.

Gender issues aside, my mother doesn't go by Dr. unless it's directly related to her research.

I would call your mom Dr. (lastname) unless she directed me otherwise, though. It's just presuming the respect first.

Cindy, at my university everyone who has a doctorate goes by Professor. At the college I attended, everyone who had a doctorate went by Dr. and everone who didn't (in arts programs this is fairly common) went by either Professor or their first name. So, when I started working here, I was surprised at all the people without doctorates teaching at this major research university. Of course, I was just dumb.

Anyhoo, I guess what I mean to say is that it varies, even within 2 colleges in the same town!

I looked up your toast question on Google and it pointed me to this story

[link]

Reading ahead a little bit, I see Google agrees with me and the smell is coming from a toaster.

I would call your mom Dr. (lastname) unless she directed me otherwise, though. It's just presuming the respect first.

But not Professor because she's not your professor? And I'm assuming you'd never call my sister Dr. (lastname) because she's more of a peer?

I do think that socially only medical doctors are Dr. But I'd need a google to get my brain to unsquirrel.

I'd guess it varies by field, too. Most engineers I work with don't use the Dr, while the astronomers do. I'm not sure if this is true in the wider world or not.

My question: Is Dr. Girlfriend a real doctor?

I got the following off someone's website, since I don't have the book here. Judith Martin is not my ideal, but since she's a touchstone for folks looking for the answer to these kinds of perplexing questions:

The following is taken from (Warner Books, 1979). I quote both the reader's question and Miss Manners' Response:

Dear Miss Manners:

I was introduced to a Dr. Soandso at a party and was embarrassed to have him say, after I had discussed at length an interesting disease in my family, that he didn't know anything about medicine. I suppose he was a doctor of philosophy, but should he then call himself a doctor?

Gentle Reader:

What you have there is either an honest medical practitioner or an uncertain Ph.D. Only people of the medical profession correctly use the title of doctor socially. A really fastidious doctor of philosophy will not use it professionally, either, and schools and scholarly institutions where it is assumed that everyone has an advanced degree use "Mr.," "Mrs.," "Miss," or "Ms."

Many people feel strongly possessive about their scholarly titles, however, and it is Miss Manners' principle to allow them to call themselves what they want. She will only offer them a story: Miss Manners' own dear father, who would never allow himself to be addressed as doctor, used to say that a Ph.D. was like a nose-you don't make a fuss about having one because you assume that everyone does; it's only when you don't have one that it is conspicuous. For sheer snobbery, doesn't that beat insisting on being called doctor? (p. 73)