FWIW, the usual US style for foreign leaders is to drop all titles other than the principal on the first use, last name on the second; so "PM Starmer met King Charles today to form the government, although Starmer and Charles' conversation will not made public"
"Today Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, met with King Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to form a government. The meeting between ..."
Dictators too, such as His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular
I made a prop piece of sheet music for Anne of the thousand Days, and it was written by Henry VIII. I made the title the smallest thing on the page, Henry's name the largest, and the rest was filled with his titles and honors.
I knew I had done good.
PM Starmer will be meeting today with Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains after lunch
lol we've got a regular user at work who keeps emailing us about titles he feels should be more complete. i keep replying nope, we're consistently using short titles for everyone and will not let your personal preferences override our style guide.
i'm thisclose to just blocking his IP address.
I do think we should make accommodations to local usage — for example, that Iceland the preferred mode of address is first name, since surnames are just patronyms. Eg Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson should be referred to as “PM Bjarni”
They do that case-by-case. So PM Johnson was regularly tho not uniformly styled "Boris" rather than "Johnson", but "MBS" is sounds a bit informal and papers will often adjust it back
His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hajj Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.
And old Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (meaning "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.")
My friend had a cat named something along the lines of Sir Monkey Archibald Sang first of his name, King of Siam, and 4th archbishop of Malaysia.
“Monkey”
