I love the anonymity of the internet. Today I one of the writers I've been corresponding with gave me the title 'Dr.' when he was writing to me. Obviously it was just an academic habit, developed to avoid offending the tenured and tetchy, but still, it made me smile. Although I think if I'm going to affect a spurious honorific I'd go for 'Colonel' (which seems to be the military rank of choice for such purposes*).
Also today I learned that all British legislation starts with the following phrase:
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
I'm not generally much for tradition, but I love that shit, especially the way that 'the lords spiritual and temporal' come before the commons, despite the fact that neither the lords (spiritual or otherwise) nor the queen have had anything to do with the drafting of laws in a long time.
-Ben
* See Here and Here
EDIT: In an strange little postscript to this, when I politely explained to the writer that I didn't have a Ph.D they told me that they didn't either. I completely forgot that I too, was just giving them the title Dr. at a guess.
