Barry Dorrans: To be fair the U.S. predilection to call people by a position they no longer hold is equally baffling to me. “President Trump” “General Petraeus” etc.

oh no absolutely no. if there is one thing i will not do it's police how people from countries without something as insane as a nobility arrange the words in conjunctions that include "sir" and "lord" and even "keir"

if there is one traditional aspect of being American I live by, it’s absolutely refusing to acknowledge or play along with British royalty and nobility bullshit

To be fair the U.S. predilection to call people by a position they no longer hold is equally baffling to me. “President Trump” “General Petraeus” etc.

yeah we should burn that with fire. Titles of office should expire immediately on leaving office

For folks who insist, the word "former" is right there.

“Former” is useful because it helps the reader understand the person’s relevance; obviously less important for someone like Trump but “former Ambassador to the UN Haley” is useful context. But it can often be better done with a note: “Ms. Haley, who served as UN Ambassador under Trump…”

Oh no their title is now just "former" former trump, former Haley, former Regan, what were they before? Doesn't matter now, they are just former

You’d think so, but not according to them or the press.

If you want to go even crazier, anyone who is confirmed to a position by the Senate can refer to him/herself as "The Honorable" for life! www.state.gov/protocol-ref....

Protocol Reference - United States Department of Statewww.state.gov Protocol Reference Forms of Address The proper honorifics, titles, and spellings of names are very important when addressing guests. Confirm all are correct before finalizing written materials such a...

Rare credit to the NY Times, they're Mr. Trump & Mr. Biden, which is all the title they need

Distinguishing President Biden in his official capacity and Mr Biden campaigning for his second term in his personal capacity is a stylebook win

Well it also makes it clear when he is immune from prosecution, right? (This is a joke about the recent SCotUS decision which is completely absurd, but still.)

Crikey

But why is it only the President who gets that? I mean, why shouldn’t Director of Waste Disposal of The State of Wisconsin, (or whatever the official title is) not get the badge for life?

Unfortunately the US does this for a lot of titles (you'll see lots of "Ambassador Haley", "Governor Christie", etc, but they are all /former/ officeholders. But stylebooks should reject it)

One of the things America was absolutely right about is that does not need, and should outright reject state-awarded titles of nobility. And so we should reject these too. If you are in the hot-seat in the oval office, congratulations Mr President. The day you leave, it should be just goodbye, Mr.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and because I feel like disrespecting our leaders is the one true American birthright, I move that the title for former office holders henceforth be "that fuckin guy."

Hey, I’ve been calling the last guy that for years. BHO gets like half a pass, that previous guy.

We gave George Washington a promotion 175 years after he died

Paperwork, eh?

Only because your four-star generals were getting bullied by european five-star generals in ww1, despite both being the highest rank available. I like the idea of nobody outranking your favourite president, but I'm sure he'd have hated it.

This is how I refer to them. We only have one president at a time. At most "former president."

Tocqueville said that lawyers were the closest thing America had to an aristocracy, and we could do without at least six of the lawyers who have taken that to heart.

He didn’t live to see the Kennedys and the Bushes.

This is what you get for not having a class system. You make up your own.

Oh America has a class system all right. Do you think anyone would have even entertained Kennedy’s run for President for more than a second if it wasn’t for the name?

To be fair, he at least had the pretense of merit, being a war hero (yes, yes, I know, there were a lot of war heroes in and running for office in that time, including JFK's immediate predecessor).

I want Shitmeister Hansson to get his full recognition!

Larry Hogan still tweets under his “Governor” account and it’s such loser shit

It makes sense to me if there's one and only one person holding the title (Pope John Paul III, President Clinton); but yeah, it's dumb overall.

When I was a young doc, we had a retired Gen in sick call, pulling rank to be seen. We triage patients but usually take them in the order they show up My NCO, a former cop, quietly said “You know what we call a retired general? Mister” He got taken to the back, but seen after all others

At least military ranks are, in an abstract sense, at least, earned.

Knighthoods tend to be earned too. They aren’t hereditary. Wether you agree an individual is worthy of it, well, that’s a whole other can of worms. Starmer earned his to rising to the rank of Director of Public Prosecutions. Of course, you can refuse them, like David Bowie did.

Regardless of what action led to it the title is bestowed at the sole discretion of and flows from the dignity of the sovereign. To recognize a knight or dame is to recognize the power of a King or Queen to so elevate people.

They are the sole discretion of the Honours Committee and the PM. We would probably still have knighthoods even if we did away with the monarchy. After all France still has knights, thanks to The Legion of Honour, and they haven’t had a king since 1870.

This is also true for military ranks.

Not in America

No, you put your head of government at the top of the military instead, which seems insane to us.

The monarch is ceremonial; they don’t pick who gets one lol

Otherwise Spike Milligan would have walked around like General Zhukov.

I don’t know who that is

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