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Thursday, May 24, 2007Sometimes it's just done to impress. One evening a phone call came to my home when I wasn't available. One of the children answered and took a message, but not a good one. "Some doctor named Joe, couldn't understand the last name." I couldn't imagine why any of the doctors named Joe of my aquaintance would be calling me late in the evening, and at home instead of through the answering service, so I was left with the mystery - until the next day when I was confronted by an irate relative who was definitely not an MD. There's a lesson in that. The children of doctors are not impressed by doctors. Actually, about the only people who are impressed by the title are those who hold it: Feelings about "Dr." are bound up in that bitch-goddess, Status. (Yes, I know: James said Success. But Status is a sister.) The best line in either Austin Powers movie belongs to Dr. Evil, who, when addressed as "Mr.," says, "I didn’t spend six years in evil medical school to be called 'Mr.,' thank you very much!" Our senior editor Jeffrey Hart, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth, remembers serving as a campaign adviser to Nixon (not that this is necessarily a segue from evil). To Jeff's amusement, Nixon called him "Dr. Hart." This accords with the Nixon we know: class-conscious, status-nervous, chip-on-the-shouldery, the boy from Whittier who received a tuition scholarship to Harvard but couldn’t go, because the family didn’t have the money to transport him to and from Massachusetts. Nixon, according to Jeff, would also say, "I’m no Ph.D., but . . .," before launching into a disquisition on some arcane topic. For some, to be called "Dr." is a way of saying, "I am somebody," in the words of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. (Ah, "the Rev. Mr. Jackson" and "the Rev. Al Sharpton" — that’s "a whole 'nother" article, as we say in my family.) Many years ago, another NR senior editor, Rick Brookhiser, surveying all the mail sent to Bill Buckley, adjudged that the most interesting letters were those from prison. And the least interesting? The ones from people who signed themselves "Ph.D." I know someone who's a lawyer in West Virginia who has found that the surest way to rattle his opposition's expert Ph.D. witness is to refer to him as "Mr." Heh. posted by Sydney on 5/24/2007 10:27:00 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:
I am amused by medical doctors who think that those with PhDs are the imposters. In fact, of course, the doctor of philosophy designation predates the medical degree by centuries.
By Does anyone with a Master's degree ever expect to be called "Master?"
Sydney, "Master" is a title formerly reserved for young boys, so I guess not!
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