Do you give people their 'titles'?

[Conchis]

When writing about a 'titled' person - Mark Elder, Paul McCartney, Harrison Birtwistle - do you automatically award them their 'title' or do you refer to them as I have done, withholding the 'honour'?

I think it's very strange and unnatural to do - over-formal, if you like, and also suggesting you 'buy in' to the idea that these titled people are somehow 'better' than little old un-titlted you.

Hst, I wouldn't call someone out for accepting an 'honour' (though my use of inverted commas indicates how I feel about them). If I was offered one - even a humble CBE/OBE - I'd accept it. Not because it I like the idea of having one or because it would make me feel superior to others - more, because so many others feel that, if you have a title, you are superior to them. And, life being what it is, that can help....

'Wow, you spoke to a knight', someone said to me recently when I mentioned I'd had a conversation with the Halle Orchestra's Principal Conductor (who isn't stuffy and seems to be known by his first name even to casual acquaintances).

Having an honour certainly helps - it will probably get you a 'good' table in a restaurant that claims to be fully booked and if you're an actor or a writer, it may up your going rate - but I don't see any reason why it should be permanently appended to your name, as if it makes you some kind of superior being.

Sir Ben Kingsley probably disagrees, of course....


What do others think?

[BBMmk2]

These days a lot of people are quite down tom earth(like me!). I was having a chat with the late Lord Snowdon many years ago and he was really nice. Yiou wouldn't think he was who he was!

[Old Grumpy]

Informality can be overdone. I was in the restaurant at Snape before a performance of "Saul" by young singers. A doting mother on the next table was regaling a solitary diner and every other word was John Eliot this and John Eliot that!

[Richard Barrett]

When writing about a 'titled' person - Mark Elder, Paul McCartney, Harrison Birtwistle - do you automatically award them their 'title'

No. I really don't want anything to do with that feudal nonsense.

[DracoM]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No. I really don't want anything to do with that feudal nonsense.

I think it depends on the reason for the title. I wouldn't put Sir John Eliot Gardner in the same bracket as Sir Guy of Gisborne.

[Lat-Literal]

If I am keen on them and think they deserved to be awarded, I might emphasise their title. That is also there to imply "this is what the honours should be about if we are to have an honours system at all". But while I managed to weather B rate celebrities being given them, what ultimately put me off the whole business was knowing in certain instances that they were given to sadistic types in the Civil Service and people in EastEnders who had indirect historical links with the criminal underworld. Oh - and of course all those barrow boy or public school types - the entrepreneurs and bankers who need to be interrogated by select committees. And, yes, drug taking sports people. I'm not opposed. I just dismiss it as nonsense.

[Conchis]

A few years ago, I read a truly terrible book called 'Covering McKellen' - the work of a forelock-tugging and un-titled thespian called David Weston.

Weston never fails to give the distinguished people he's worked with their titles - incessant talk of 'Sir Ian McKellen', 'Sir Ian Holm', 'Sir Trevor Nunn'. Presumably that's the way he addresses them when he's socialising with them? Very quickly, it became sickening (along with the endless unrelated discussion of the prospects of his football team). Very sad that people in the arts feel the need to be so deferential.

[Conchis]

I note that Stephen Hawking - who died yesterday - was not a 'Sir', although he was a C.H (supposedly a rarer and more 'prestigious' honour). I presume that he must have been offered a knighthood at some point but had declined it?

[french frank]

When writing about a 'titled' person - Mark Elder, Paul McCartney, Harrison Birtwistle - do you automatically award them their 'title'

No. If people deserve titles, their achievements shine out. You don't automatically add MBE or CB after people's names. If it's someone not particularly famous who has some other sort of title (not part of the 'honours system') which 'identifies' them, I might, especially if I don't know what their first name is. Dr Beeching, Lord Bath.

Yes, Stephen Hawking refused a knighthood.

[Conchis]

No. If people deserve titles, their achievements shine out. You don't automatically add MBE or CB after people's names. If it's someone not particularly famous who has some other sort of title (not part of the 'honours system') which 'identifies' them, I might, especially if I don't know what their first name is. Dr Beeching, Lord Bath.

Yes, Stephen Hawking refused a knighthood.

But 'socialist' playwright David Hare didn't.

[Padraig]

No. I really don't want anything to do with that feudal nonsense.

But don't you agree that there is nothing like a Dame?

[Bryn]

But don't you agree that there is nothing like a Dame?

Don't get Richard harping on about that question.

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose I would include if they were "Sir" or "Lady" in an article or book about them, but not to their face; even if... especially if, people around me were.

[teamsaint]

No.

The honours system is an outdated farce.

And worse, it is divisive.