Re:Why Do Colleges Give Honorary Degrees?
by tormeh on Wednesday August 26, 2015 @10:29AM
(#10123094)
A line from the show "The West Wing" went something like this:
"Please, Reverend, call me 'Mr. President'. It's not that I need you to stroke my ego, it's that in this job I have to make some difficult choices that can be uncomfortable to me personally, and I would like you to emphasize the office rather than the person holding it"
As a Scandinavian, all honorifics, including "Mr." etc. sound weird, but that was a great explanation for why some people would like one.
Re:Why Do Colleges Give Honorary Degrees?
by vacri on Wednesday August 26, 2015 @07:30PM
(#10126619)
Mad Magazine had a gag way back in the day saying that one of the benefits of being a senator is being called "The Honorable [name]", right up until they jail you for all the horrible things you did in office...
We don't normally call Ms Merkel "Frau Bundeskanzlerin" and we don't normally call MPs "Herr Bundestagsabgeordneter" or "Frau Bundestagsabgeordnete" (although you might address them this way in a formal letter, maybe).
Maybe this has something to do with abolishing royal/aristocratic titles in the aftermath of WW1 -- it certainly feels anachronistic and oldfashioned to me.