UK Honours List - a bit OT

[Mike_Oettle]

MacMillan of Rathdown wrote:

The usual form would be:

(signed) Peter Peel
(printed on a card or letter paper) Peter Peel, OBE
(if in the armed forces then) General Sir Peter Peel, GCMG
(if the son of a Peer then) Hon. Peter Peel, CBE

And added to that, if the son of a duke or marquess, or the eldest son of an earl: Lord Peter Peel, CBE.

There is a trend among some ignoramuses who have lately been awarded life peerages to use their first names with their titles, but the use of Lord or Lady with a first name is completely wrong for the actual holder of a title.
(I do recall an exception: when George Brown entered the House of Lords there was already a Lord Brown, so he chose to be called Lord George-Brown. The use of a hyphen is obligatory in the Lords – when Andrew Lloyd Webber [no hyphen] became a life peer, he had to call himself Lord Lloyd-Webber.)

Regarding professors and doctors, Todd and Biathlonman are entirely correct: if a person holds a doctorate, it is entirely proper to call that person doctor. If a professor, professor also is appropriate.
But then we reach a place where British self-effacement comes into play: in German-speaking countries, and at Afrikaans-medium South African universities, one encounters the title Professor Doctor.
This is simply bad form in the Anglosphere, but at Germanic institutions one uses both titles if one has both a doctorate and a professorship.
It can get even more complicated. I recall a play reading in which my German teacher took the part of an extremely proper Afrikaans butler, who was required to announce a woman who was a professor with a PhD whose husband also was a professor with a PhD. After looking it up in a book of etiquette, he found that he was required to say: “Professor doktor mevrou professor doktor . . .”
Another example of bad form (often encountered in South Africa nowadays, I am afraid to say) is where a professor leaves his (her) teaching appointment and continues to use the title Prof. This is only permissible if one is made a professor emeritus. But an adviser to our president did just that.
There is a notion found in some quarters that only a person with a medical degree ought to be called doctor.
A Rhodes University, Grahamstown, academic doing research into the dialects of English spoken in the Albany (Grahamstown) district of the Eastern Cape used to socialise with farmers. At one braaivleis (or barbecue) he was introduced as “Dr So-and-so”, but the host immediately remarked: “He’s not a rreal doctor. He’s one of those things from Rhodes!”
In fact medical practitioners in South Africa (and in other English-speaking countries not including the US) generally have a double bachelorate: a degree in medicine (MB) and a degree in surgery (ChB), or MBChB as it is usually written.
Those who specialise generally go on to earn a master’s degree, but not many earn doctorates.
It is a matter of courtesy and tradition that these medical men (and women) are called doctor, but only those actually holding doctorates properly deserve the title.
In Britain there is a further distinction made regarding surgeons. A Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (there are two such colleges – one based in London, the other in Edinburgh) is called mister, not doctor.
But this does not generally hold in South Africa.

Getting back to the New Year honours list, I found it far too long to try to take in all the names. But I did notice recognition for the man we used to see in the Pink Panther movies, jumping out from a place of ambush to attack Inspector Clouseau: Bert Kwouk.
Regards,
Mike