A curious delight explained
A compelling analysis!
We all, I assert, know this phenomenon.
Sometimes known as "Why don't you; yes, but."
I find myself amused by the "Styles" section of Curzon's Wikipedia entry:
1859-1886: The Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon
1886-1898: The Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, MP
1898-1899: The Rt Hon. The Lord Curzon of Kedleston
1899-1901: His Excellency The Rt Hon. The Lord Curzon of Kedleston, GCSI, GCIE
1901-1905: His Excellency The Rt Hon. The Lord Curzon of Kedleston, GCSI, GCIE, PC
1905-1911: The Rt Hon. The Lord Curzon of Kedleston, GCSI, GCIE, PC
1911-1916: The Rt Hon. The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, GCSI, GCIE, PC
1916-1921: The Rt Hon. The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC
1921-1925: The Most Hon. The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC
Marquess outranks Earl? I thought a Marquess was more like a Baronet. So confusing--it's like trying to remember whether a straight beats a flush, or whether they're in fact different names for the same thing. I'm going to bed.
5: So it would seem:
In the British Isles the title ranks below a duke and above an earl
The reason is also interesting:
In times past, the distinction between an earl and a marquess was that a marquess's land, called a march, was on the border of the country, while an earl's land, called a county, often wasn't. Because of this, a marquess was trusted to defend and fortify against potentially hostile neighbors and was thus more important and ranked higher than an earl.
There was an Earl of March, the first of whom won the title by killing the king and taking up with the queen (not in that order).
Between this Earl of March and the Duke of Earl, I just give up. Too confusing.
This is the real reason we had a Revolution.
5: For the longest time as a kid, I thought "baron" had to be a pretty impressive title. After all, badasses like Baron Karza and Baron Harkonnen and Baron Samedi were rocking it, right? Finding out that "baron" was actually just a step above being a commoner was a major letdown.
8: hence the similar distinction between a Markgraf and a Landgraf, I should think.
I am disappointed that neb didn't quote The Masque of Balliol:
My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person.
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim twice a week.
Which, I see, also includes, as well as Toynbee, this one:
Positivists ever talk in s-
Uch an epic style as DAWKINS;
Creeds are nought and MAN is all,
Spell Him with a capital.
...referring to a completely different Dawkins.
9: actually there were two lots of Earls of March, one Scottish (guarding the English March) and one English (the Welsh March), also known as the Marcher Lords. Neither should be confused with the Earls of Mar, of whom there are also two, both Scottish, due to an argument.
DUB ME NOW THE FAQIR OF IPI,
OFFER TO MAKE ME SHEIKH OF FAO,
I SHOULD REMAIN INERT AND SLEEPY,
JUST THE SAME AS YOU SEE ME NOW.
LION OF JUDAH? SHAH OF PERSIA?
PARAMOUNT BEY OF TIMBUCTOO?
IF I'M TO BE ROUSED FROM MY INERTIA
I MUST BE MADE WALI OF PUSHT-I-KUH.
Curzon, possibly the most pompous man in British history. Achievements: the Younghusband Mission, completely pointless recreational imperialism, making sure famine relief claimants weren't faking, starting an officer training scheme for Indian princes that led to a special commission that meant nobody had to take orders from you, opposing votes for women, defending the House of Lords veto, inventing Jordan and the Curzon line, occupying and then de-occupying south Persia, serial resigning, trying very hard to be prime minister.
Literally nothing he did wasn't either stupid, evil, or completely impermanent. Except for commissioning the Cenotaph, I guess. That's still there!
I am not sure if it is entirely accurate, but I learned the hierarchy of the lords with the, uh, I forgot what the term is, anyway: very dull men eat brown bread. So, viscount, duke, marquess, earl, baron, baronet.
A duke outranks a viscount. "Dull men eat very brown bread" works.
I love you all SO MUCH but I have special feelings about neb. Sometimes I feel it in the area.
I love you all SO MUCH but I have special feelings about neb. Sometimes I feel it in the area. I had to comment twice about it. The area.
thanks for the never-to-be-used mnemonic! so helpful. no, it probably will actually come in handy when reading novels. like when everyone at that party doesn't realize that the "baron" is the duc du guermentes and they wrongly think he's some lowlife, allowing some bullshit viscount to enter the dining room before him. and later the hostess just refuses to believe it! total bitch!
OT: Even as the sort of savage who eats oatmeal for lunch (don't judge me), I would prefer an NYT Dining section comprised entirely of Jacques Pépin's notes on technique to another goddamned essay on the durance vile of being the restaurant critic for the most powerful newspaper in the U.S.
thanks for the never-to-be-used mnemonic! so helpful.
You'll be grateful when ttaM tears off his mask at the next meetup and reveals himself to be the fifth Viscount of Severn and Thames.
18: Oops, it's been a long time since I had to keep track of such things (it came in handy during the endless political history of England course I took in university). And then when I had a brief period of reading far too many regency romance novels. But that's not to be spoken of.
re: 24
I don't inherit the title unless my elder brother Freddie Victor Featherstonehaugh O'Cholmondeley nattarGcM dies first.
What sort of rank entitles one to sign things with just the family/title name (e.g., "Bedford," "Clarence," etc.)? I always thought that would be sort of nicely convenient.
28: any peerage, I think, allows you to sign with just your title - whether that's your surname or a geographical indication.
A baronet can't do it because he's just Sir Bob McManus, Bart., but even a relatively lowly peer like ttaM Aloysius de Vere McMenemy Stubfuttock nattarGcM, fifth viscount of Severn and Thames, can sign himself "Severn and Thames". Or m'colleague Pauly, third Baron Shore, can sign himself simply "Shore".
28: "Duke" definitely does, as we learn from Lord Peter Wimsey's brother Denver.
My dad always answered the phone "Hick speaking" excepting with our real last name. Maybe he is a peer and hasn't told me.
You can sign whatever you like, surely. Especially as most signatures are illegible.
You all know far too much about this.
Related: yesterday, I passed a wine-making establishment named something like Barren Hill Vineyards and thought, "Surely, they misspelled 'Baron', for who would want wine from a barren hill?"
The apple orchard where my homebrew club has its annual cider party is on Poor Farm Road. Only recently did I think about that as referring to "farm where the poor are sent" instead of "terrible farm".
Actually, knowing almost nothing, I thought you kind of wanted nasty rocky infertile soil for vines -- that it toughened them up or something. So the literal reading might make sense.
||
Before I write a stern letter to my new bank chastising them for allowing only alphanumeric characters for online banking passwords, is there any good reason for their policy? O computer experts, are special characters some kind of glitchy problem that makes network administrators' lives miserable?
Relatedly, I hate having my neighborhood bank swallowed up.
||>
Not really a good reason. There are common bad reasons (some characters require special handling in software for hashing, for html and URLs), but for well written software this should not be a problem. The availability of different special chars for typing and for hashing are I guess the biggest issue.
There is no good reason for that policy. A recent xkcd spoke to this.
wait, I thought you held xkcd in contempt. How did you know that, and why cite it?
Neb keeps his favorite comics close, and his contempted comics closer.
Stack Overflow on this question.
My last three banks--Bank of America, Fidelity, and a local credit union--have only taken alphanumeric characters for my password.
40: it was linked on metafilter, and it was one of those strips where the guy is actually right, and wasn't being a cock about something.
I read somewhere ages ago the menmonic Do Men Ever Visit Boston for
Duke
Marquis
Earl
Viscount
Baron
Nosflow had a *good* reason for knowing about that particular xkcd strip.
Wait, I thought the xkcd strip was about the policies that force you to include a non-alphanumeric character, not about ones that forbid it?
These "your password must include at least one lowercase letter, one uppercase letter, one numeral, and one non-alphanumeric character" things annoy me. But not as much as helpful IT people upgrading a cluster and breaking all my software just when I'm trying to finish a paper!
47: maybe. These details are below me. Really I'd be fine with just alphanumeric characters + space, so long as there isn't a length limit, but if you want a non-alphanumeric, non-space character too, that's easily done.
For a while the password for my wireless network was "how dare you ask to use my wireless!".
"how dare you ask to use my wireless!"
Shouldn't that technically be "how dare you ask to use my wireless?!"
I thought you kind of wanted nasty rocky infertile soil for vines -- that it toughened them up or something.
A wine named Sue.
50: well, maybe that's why I changed it.
I would prefer an NYT Dining section comprised entirely of Jacques Pépin's notes on technique
I find him so charming. His autobiography is a good read.
Is it etiquettal (in formal contexts, of course) to introduce oneself as Mr./Ms. Surname? I'm not sure if I brought that rule over from Japanese, where -san is an honorific and therefore using it for yourself would be gauche.
My current wireless-network password is "[name of housemate] is awesome", because I wanted it to make it awkward for my housemate to tell guests what the password is.
re: 54
I don't think so. Or at least I never do. However, at a medical appointment the other day when the doctor said, 'Hello, I'm Dr Smith', I replied with 'Hi, I'm Dr nattarGcM'. She didn't look amused.
54: I don't know that it's exactly rude, but it's at least weird. You introduce yourself as Firstname Lastname. (A related twitch is that I was taught never to use 'Esq.' as a suffix for my own name. Other lawyers are supposed to 'Esq.' me, and I them in return, but I don't give myself the honorific. I don't think this is consistently followed, though.)
44: Does
Mister Smearcase
Ever
View
Before Posting.
But in fact your mnemonic was totally different so judges I say no pwnage and actual value add. Everyone should eschew apologizing and caveating and whatnot and just do and say whatever the fuck they intend to do or say.
I'm going to go ahead and commend Urple for being so good-natured about our pleasure in his foibles.
If this is the British oddness thread ... I was in Oxford today, doing an open top bus tour with Kid D who has been desperate to do one for ages (and having lunch with C), and was amused when we went past the animal house and the guide told us that we were passing a medical research building that was built a couple of years ago. There were loads of buildings that he didn't mention, so why bother specifically referring to one that's so controversial that you don't want to actually say what it is?
56/57: except for at a college, hopefully? Because I call myself Dr. Geebie all the time.
There's even a thing whereby teachers ought not be more informal, because they're undermining their colleagues whose authority is more tenuous, due to our students being possibly racist or sexist or ageist little shits.
I'm Dr nattarGcM'. She didn't look amused.
Well, Google-proofing in conversation is a bit weird.
re: 61
I very very rarely refer to myself as Dr nattarGcM. Mostly when someone is giving off arsey vibes about their own high-falutin' status.
There was a thing at work a few years back where there was a meeting to thrash out some disaster that had happened; apportioning blame and trying to prevent it happening again. I gave my view, which was totally right,* and then a guy from another department gave his view, which was a load of made-up fraudulent bullshit.** Afterwards I remarked to my boss that I couldn't believe that the senior person adjudicating the meeting hadn't taken my side. And he said:
"Well, he said to me that Lying-shitebag has an Oxbridge PhD, and took that as basically sufficient reason for dismissing the opposing case."
So, ever since, I make sure every work email has a prominent sig with 'Dr Fucking Know-all, Many Degrees" on it.
* no humour intended. It was a case that it was so utterly obvious who was right that I was embarrassed for the other people in the meeting.
** outright lies designed to get someone fired. I'm still somewhat ashamed I've never met him in a dark alley somewhere and broken him.
Yeah, "Dr." seems to occupy a different space than "Mr./Ms." in this realm. Maybe because in the medical context, it is something people want to know off the bat.
Right, Dr. is a status claim, while everyone's entitled to Mr. or Ms. So you can introduce yourself as Dr. where it's appropriate for you to be claiming that status (an MD talking to a patient, a teacher talking to a class). It feels like there's something slightly more complicated than that going on with not introducing yourself as Mr/Ms, but I'm not pinning it down successfully.
That you're not introducing any information by calling yourself Mr/Ms? So it's solely pomp?
67: It would have put a quick end to all those "Pat" sketches on SNL.
Is it etiquettal (in formal contexts, of course) to introduce oneself as Mr./Ms. Surname?
If you're Sidney Poitier, sure.
If this is the British oddness thread ...
Implying there's another kind?
Something like that, or you're preemptively guarding against the possibility that they'll rudely firstname you, and assuming other people will be rude is rude in itself.
63: what do you mean, googleproofing? nattarGcM is a perfectly cromulent old Qwlghmian name.
re: 71
Indeed, it means 'nattar of Gcm', where 'nattar' is an old Qwlghmian name for 'illegitimate son of'.
All my friends are different, but I love them all the same.
Indeed, it means 'nattar of Gcm', where 'nattar' is an old Qwlghmian name for 'illegitimate son of'.
So Qwlghmian expresses of-ness through adjacency? Are you sure it's not supposed to be parsed as "natt ar Gcm"?
re: 74
It's, ahem, broadly similar to the Irish/Scottish, McX, to mean 'son of X', and FitzX, to mean 'illegitimate son of X'.
a brief period of reading far too many regency romance novels. But that's not to be spoken of.
I would speak of this, even in mixed company. I just recently went on a Georgette Heyer streak. I hadn't known of her before. Fun!
an MD talking to a patient
I think it is fair for medical doctors to call themselves such. (Although I like honorifics in general, and default to them or a nice Sir or Ma'am.) You aren't friends. You are relating to them solely for their profession, and this is the mark of their profession, which is important enough for you to buy their time. Dr. Lastname may well have her finger up your ass within half an hour, so let's keep this all real professional and formal.
I am incapable of referring to myself as Dr. Tailshrub (and will be incapable of referring to myself as Prof. Tailshrub when it becomes an accurate term of address next year), even in cases where that information would be useful to my interlocutor. It just feels wrong wrong wrong, and so I have to resort to various other ways of conveying the information.
Even to students who will otherwise call you Miss or Ma'am, but never your first name?
53: In college a friend of mine took a week- or two-long course with him and reported that he was as kind and charming as he seemed on television but also a total hardass in the old school French kitchen way suggested in the linked article.
Dr. Lastname may well have her finger up your ass within half an hour, so let's keep this all real professional and formal.
That would seem to be a reason to keep it friendly.
Dr. Lastname may well have her finger up your ass within half an hour, so let's keep this all real professional and formal.
In that case, there are clearly social contexts where using "Dr" is appropriate too.
It's, ahem, broadly similar to the Irish/Scottish, McX, to mean 'son of X', and FitzX, to mean 'illegitimate son of X'.
Oh, so really "nattarGcM" doesn't mean "nattar of GcM", because "nattar" doesn't by itself mean "illegitimate son" (the way "Fitz" doesn't, by itself, mean that). So I should have looked at your second rather than your first explanation: "nattar", meaning "illegitimate son of", by itself has the of-ness.
You see, my confusion derives entirely from YOUR confusing exposition.
I think it is fair for medical doctors to call themselves such. (Although I like honorifics in general, and default to them or a nice Sir or Ma'am.) You aren't friends. You are relating to them solely for their profession, and this is the mark of their profession, which is important enough for you to buy their time. Dr. Lastname may well have her finger up your ass within half an hour, so let's keep this all real professional and formal.
This is cool, but I'd like an honorific as well -- if you're Dr. X, I'd like to be Ms. Breath, rather than Lizard. (In practice, I don't notice doctors firstnaming me -- they seem to avoid the issue, which I don't mind at all. But don't call me by my first name if I can't do the same to you.)
Yep. I tell them what they can call me at the beginning of the course ("Please call me Dr. Tailshrub" or "You can call me either Redfox or Prof. Tailshrub, as you prefer," or whatever, depending on the circumstances), and then I generally sign emails with my initials. If for some reason I was calling one of them on the phone I would introduce myself by my full name ("This is Redfox Tailshrub, your Fraudulent Pseudoscience professor").
The parsing "Redfox Tailshrub" amuses me, because I inwardly pronounce "redfoxtailshrub" with antepenultimate stress, the other syllables being unstressed and additionally short (thus the second paeon), while the split-up version calls ineluctably for an inward pronunciation of two trochees.
I'm no longer sure that's how I pronounce "redfoxtailshrub". But separating the elements persists in seeming odd.
88: I pronounce it as you, with an accented fox.
I really get a kick out of calling myself Dr. Geebie, to be honest, because it sounds like I'm putting on airs. I don't know why I enjoy it so much, but I do.
I'm pretty sure it's slightly local to Heebie U, and that at Big Research University I'd feel like a goon. This place is traditional enough that it's entertaining to play along.
(I would never introduce myself that way to anyone but an undergraduate student, however, because that would be pretentious.)
I'm always having to correct people (mostly in emails) that I'm only Mr. Hick, not Dr. Hick. It annoys me.
I particular enjoy it when students drop the "Geebie" and address me as "Doc" or "Professor". I feel like I made some team from the 1950s.
Team Twit! I made first string!
Adults can introduce themselves to kids as Mr./Mrs./Ms. X (especially in a school setting).
College students should be told specifically what to use, otherwise the clueless ones will default to high school titles (Mr./Mrs./Ms.) and piss people off. I explicitly say "You can call me by my first name, or you can use Prof. LastName. Don't say Mr. it makes me feel like a high school teacher." Freshman need to learn this, and it's helpful for them to hear it explicitly before they make themselves sound like sexist assholes with a woman professor.
Dr. is fine, but really only europeans should be calling me Dr., the correct term of address in the US is prof.
Convention at Chicago used to be to address (male) professors with "Mr.", supposedly because since everyone teaching you would have a PhD there was no point in introducing discriminations of rank into forms of address. Or something. I'm not sure what custom was with female professors; surely there must have been some even in days of yore there? When I was an undergrad this was a source of much confusion. I'm sure some people defaulted to "Mrs." or "Ms.", but I think most just used "professor so-and-so".
Dr. is fine, but really only europeans should be calling me Dr., the correct term of address in the US is prof.
That's definitely not the convention here: non-tenure track faculty members don't have terminal degrees, so "professor" correlates with lesser status.
22-23: Wasn't Sifton mostly bragging about how much good food he got to eat? Also, maybe I'm a sap, but I liked the end of the piece.
I always mentally pronounce "redfoxtailshrub" as two trochees, but I suppose that's for no good reason.
I would speak of this, even in mixed company. I just recently went on a Georgette Heyer streak. I hadn't known of her before. Fun!
Isn't she? I found out about her about two years ago and am now quite sad to have run through all her novels (except the historical ones, because Wellington, whatever), several of them multiple times.
I know AWB and LB are fans, too.
I tell all my students to call me Cecily, and that I'm not a doctor yet, and that I haven't finished my phd, so really Cecily is fine because I'm not a doctor. Yet. So mostly they start emails with "Dr. Cecily"
I mentally pronounce rfts as two trochees too, unless I just truncate it to redfox.
I sometimes get mail addressed to Mr. Kraab because my first name is androgynous. The best, though, is when I get an e-mail from another union person addressed to Brother Kraab.
103: Yes. Though unstressed doesn't mean vowels aren't pronounced, IIMBSALB.
105: those were a vocalic x and a vocalic r.
Which I guess would mean that "shrb" was pronounced "sherb", though.
104: I don't understand how "Sir" is androgynous at all.
Yeah, grad students should just be called by first names.
Ha! As if anybody ever calls grad students.
Until I encountered academics, I thought lawyers could be annoyingly status-conscious and prone to pointless bickering.
In my experience young american academics aren't that status-conscious: it's rare to find someone who objects to students using first names. The problem is that students don't want to use first names. If they're going to try to use formal titles they should do so correctly, and most importantly they should learn it before they start calling their female professors "Mrs. X."
Dr. is fine, but really only europeans should be calling me Dr., the correct term of address in the US is prof.
At my graduate institution there is quite the distinction made between Dr. and Professor. There are people hired to teach on a pretty much permanent basis (so not adjuncts) who are preceptors instead of professors, and are always identified as Dr. Soandso.
108: And I suppose you don't think women should get to be knights either, you sexist.
I think all men and women should own a pair of British Knights
Oh man, I was recently reading a letter signed by a bunch of famous British mathematicians protesting some government decision (basically the conservatives decided to get rid of all math postdocs except for the ones in statistics), and sorting out the awesome strings of letters was hilarious.
The best was "Robert, Lord May of Oxford, OM, AC, Kt, FRS." Most of those appeared elsewhere (FRS is fellow of the royal society which is almost all the famous mathematicians, OM is a super-high honor that's limited to 25 people, etc.), but the most confusing one is "Kt." What's going on there is that since "Lord" is a more important title than "Sir" you don't put "Sir" in front, and instead you at "Kt." I'm not totally sure why you can't say "Sir Robert, Lord May of Oxford" but apparently you don't.
I think the idea is that you don't give someone a less important honorific if they rate a better one, and there's only one honorific slot in a mode of address. So if someone has a right to be called Lord May, calling them Sir Robert doesn't fly.
113 strikes my as too nit-picky. If you have a doctorate and you work teaching at a university then I think you should be allowed to use professor. Nit-picking about who's really a "professor" is something I identify with Europe where professor is the equivalent of holding a named chair, and people who would be an assistant or associate prof here are lecturers of some sort.
Though I guess "research scientists" are something of an exception. But they don't interact with students, so first names should be fine mostly.
117: That makes sense, except that Sir is attached to first names, while Lord is attached to the last name, so it seems like the slots don't conflict there. Not that one should expect these things to make sense.
The list of OM's is great (David Attenborough! Guy who invented the web!). I kinda wish we had equivalent things here, as it would be amusing to try to sort out who the 20 awesomest americans are.
112: Young anythings tend to be less status-conscious than old, but I'd still put academics toward the status-conscious end of the scale. My half-baked theory is that a working environment without a lot of formal hierarchy makes it that much more important to police the informal hierarchy.
Lord is attached to the last name
Not always; Lord [firstname] is an honorific for the younger son of a peer (and maybe there's another category? but at least that). I think if the younger son of a peer were knighted, the Sir would bounce the Lord in that instance, but I'm not sure. And I have no idea at all about Hon. -- it's like the Lord [firstname] thing, but less, and I don't know the boundaries.
Further confusing, at my undergraduate institution, it is said that Mr. Jefferson (as he's called) insisted that all non-MD doctors be called "professor" rather than "doctor" (a tradition that holds to this day). The cynical version of the story continues: you see, ol' Tom felt insecure about never having earned a Ph.D.
I also think that as research activity has gotten more intense over the past 30 years, people should be more status-conscious about how good their research is, and care less about their official title. Certainly academics are more status motivated than most comparable professions, because a lot of what would ordinarily be financial incentive is replaced by status incentives.
Strangely, I had a discussion of just this subject over lunch with a soon-to-be PhD. (Who appears here under false pretenses: she did nothing especially, or even slightly, messily.)
My 1936 Britannica has a long, long list of contributors full of various initials.
Kraab is a knight, though, right? (Although the obvious realm of her knighthood has dropped outof existence.)
Did she drink multiple espressos? A mess, as one might say, of Illy?
My lab is all first names, even with undergrads, but the wall of pictures of lab members is organized according to an amusingly strict vertical hierarchy. My change in status from hired technician to graduate student occasioned quite a significant change in the height of my picture.
I will bet $20 that LB learned the information in 21 as a result of reading Dorothy Sayers.
119 -- that list of OMs seems totes bizarre. Owen Chadwick? And then a few famous scientists but not many. And then Thatcher.
I see that the Knights of Pythias has includes William Jennings Bryan, FDR, and Anthony Weiner, among other luminaries.
Local take on occupation. I suppose someone has long since tried to refund the $24 for Wall Street.
123: I was privy to a thick wad of correspondence between two profs and the department chairman about the assignment of ID numbers in the then new personnel computer system. The numbers had been generated at random but these two clowns insisted their numbers HAD to be lower than those for lower ranking types.
Eventually, after exhausting logic and diplomacy, the chair just told them to shut up, pretty much in those words. (Googling their names, I see a few hits on lawsuits about this, that, and the other thing. Not surprising, I guess)
129: Yes -- you can tell that I learned it from a novel rather than professionally because I remember it accurately.
Oh good. That's how I learned that piece of trivia, and I like to think that we are all the same, deep down.
We're all the same, deep down, except with slightly different intestinal fauna.
135/36: That's how I learned it too. It's nice because Lord Peter explains it so clearly. (And it's not so different from the Jane is Miss Bennett but Elizabeth is Miss Elizabeth thing.)
And it will literally never be of any use to any of us, other than understanding the relationships in older British novels. Does anyone understand exactly who gets to call themselves Hon. (barring Pittsburgh restaurant patrons)?
139: I feel like I should know this, having read Hons and Rebels, but I don't.
I think a peer's eldest son may, as a courtesy, go by one of his father's lesser titles: e.g., the Earl of Brideshead, dreary eldest child of Lord Marchmain in Wait, Were They Gay or Not? Brideshead Revisited.
And I suppose you don't think women should get to be knights either, you sexist.
If I could find my copy of Uden's A Dictionary of Chivalry (a terrific time-waster and perfect gift for shy, bookish children) I would quote the passages about the various orders of chivalry for ladies.
That's how I learned it too.
And the same, of course, goes for me.
Would the natural split of redfoxtailshrub for Neb and LB then be be The Hon. Red Foxtailshrub?
141: Is that a courtesy, or is the title actually moving around? I think some lesser titles may automatically descend to a heir, but it's specific to the particular title how it behaves. I'm thinking the Duke of Omnium's son was the Viscount? Earl? of Silverbridge for real (although Planty Pall wasn't, possibly because he was a nephew rather than a son -- that the title wouldn't jump to the next heir, it'd only go to any actual eldest son of the current duke.)
And wikipedia says I'm wrong, it is a courtesy. Did not know that.
145: I've never read of it as anything but a courtesy, but I assume that some titles might be inherited by the eldest son separately for some reason or other (maybe, say, a title in a matrilineal jurisdiction (Hungary?), if the mother happened to have been an only child).
The Order of Merit and the Companionship of Honour are odd - they're SO RARE that there is a numerical limit, and they are the only honours in the literally personal gift of the old lady from Windsor, rather than being delegated to the prime minister. But they're both relatively recent and were invented to provide something for geeks, industrialists, etc (in the first case) and to help the monarchy look like it recognised the people who were fighting the First World War for it (in the second).
So if you're the kind of person who really wants British honours, you should arguably disdain the two hardest-to-get that are actually handed out by the monarch. And if you're that kind of person, you're meant to care about the monarch's approval. But then you get into the point that in a sense the royal family aren't actually as posh as some of the aristocracy and indeed just the squirearchy, because they've been trying to look less weird since 1917 under the orders of successive governments. Compare Prince William and David Cameron, frex. One of them is a vaguely posh, rugby union playing junior RAF officer and the other seems to be an arrogant prussian junker lizard permanently on the edge of horsewhipping a servant.
The Hon. Red Foxtailshrub
It's pronounced "Fanshaw."
149 -- It looks like the only people in the world that are both in the Order of Merit and the Companionship of Honour are (a) Frederick Sanger [OK, legit] and . . . (b) David Attenborough. Are you fucking kidding me? How far does narrating documentaries about the black-tailed swimmingduck get you? I guess the royals like their nature documentaries.
God, the Tories stuffed the CHs with dullards didn't they?
There is of course the great Shadow-Order of Omelas. The list looks way more fun than any of the others, although there are a few dullards near the top.
I think it means the BBC is probably safer than I feared. I note that she put one architect into each, presumably to avoid having to talk to both of them.
I guess the royals like their nature documentaries.
It's actually a very well-hidden scandal: the honors are a payoff, so that he doesn't reveal that the Queen makes come over and narrate whatever her corgis are doing. Unchecked power is a terrible thing.
When I am queen, the least terrible thing I will do is make famous people come over and perform at my whim.
Only the children of earls and above get to be lords and ladies - like Lady Di, daughter of Earl Spencer. Children of other peers are hons - like the Mitfords, children of the second baron Redesdale.
I'm sure that would be an improvement. See here for an exhaustive catalogue of tedious kitsch.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/1303
Romney hitting Perry.
Walked by the Occupy folks this afternoon. Average age looked about mine. It's probably a younger group in the evenings.
an arrogant prussian junker lizard permanently on the edge of horsewhipping a servant
I just wanted to see these words again.
David Attenborough. Are you fucking kidding me? How far does narrating documentaries about the black-tailed swimmingduck get you?
In his defence, he was also director of programming for the BBC, and was formerly an official National Treasure until he was promoted to make room for Stephen Fry; he is now a Living God.
Stephen Fry, now there's a man we could do with less of on our telly. Viz his recent/ongoing program about language which, to me at least, seemed to contain a lot of insufficiently substantiated speculation presented as fact.
The Order of Merit and the Companionship of Honour are odd - ... they're both relatively recent and were invented to provide something for geeks, industrialists, etc (in the first case) and to help the monarchy look like it recognised the people who were fighting the First World War for it (in the second).
So if you're the kind of person who really wants British honours, you should arguably disdain the two hardest-to-get that are actually handed out by the monarch
Sounds a version of the thing in Proust where Saint-Loup looks down on the Prince de Borodino because the latter's great-grandfather was raised to the nobility by Napoleon, making him riffraff from the viewpoint of the noble families of the Ancien Régime.
But then you get into the point that in a sense the royal family aren't actually as posh as some of the aristocracy and indeed just the squirearchy, because they've been trying to look less weird since 1917 under the orders of successive governments. Compare Prince William and David Cameron, frex. One of them is a vaguely posh, rugby union playing junior RAF officer and the other seems to be an arrogant prussian junker lizard permanently on the edge of horsewhipping a servant.
What you're talking about is probably a different phenomenon, but isn't there a stereotype from way back that the Royal Family is supposed to be earthy, horsey and unintellectual? The idea being that when you're that high up you can dispense with the airs and just embody the essence of the nation.
isn't there a stereotype from way back that the Royal Family is supposed to be earthy, horsey and unintellectual?
Not that far back, but the whole "Farmer George" thing is probably what you're thinking about. George III was a Good King (although not a Good Thing) because he was fairly economical (by 18th century king standards), interested in pigs and turnips, loved his wife, didn't shag around, had lots of kids, was Protestant etc. Not like those suspiciously luxurious Stuarts and Bourbons and Bonapartes, you see.
"D'you know what they call me? Farmer George, that's what they call me! D'you know what that is, sir?"
"Insolence, father?"
"No, sir! It is love!"
It's probably a slightly obvious choice, but my favourite quote from that film is still:
My dear Pepys, the persistent excellence of the stool has been one of this disease's most tedious features. When will you get it into your head, one can produce a copious, regular, and exquisitely-turned evacuation every day and still be a stranger to reason?
But if your bowels are irregular, you can't be sane?
But if your bowels are irregular, you can't be sane?
That was apparently the theory:
In the humoural doctrine, madness was the result of an imbalance between the four humours, and treatment necessitated the restoration of that balance... [D]octors ... administered ... laxatives to purge the bowels, in efforts to restore the humoural balance.
---"Madness" by Mary de Young
If I don't get coffee, I don't purge my bowels. Therefore, I am correct in assuming coffee keeps me sane.
169: This is the way that new horizons of thought are opened up. A piece of the puzzle falls into place, and suddenly all is light.
