Is using proper titles in social situations pretentious?

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by monster

Are you in the US? I suspect a cultural difference here.... in the UK, once you are Dr. It replaces the Mr or Ms completely. That's sort of why I like it -it's genderless. But I notice here there's rarely a space on personal info forms for Dr or other title, as there is on most British forms, and yet there is space for suffixes (e.g. Jr, III etc) which there isn't on British forms, in general.

Yes, I live just south of DC and my family's been in the US for generations. Maybe there's a regional cultural difference, not just a national one?

That bit of social etiquette has stayed with me all my life. Friends of old who now have doctorates I will still call by first name or nick/pet name but if I introduce them to someone else, I call them Dr. and let my friend decide if they want the person to call them anything else.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Lazarus Long

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.