When someone has worked hard enough (whether you personally feel they have worked hard enough aside) to earn an advanced degree, they have also earned the right to be addressed as having done so. ESPECIALLY when being addressed formally.
If you want to address the person as a part of a couple and you DON’T want to acknowledge their advanced degree you’d bloody well better acknowledge their place in the couple.
So while I’m pretty laid back, it REALLY raises my hackles if, on formal communications & invitations, I’m neither part of Mr & Mrs NOR Dr, just addressed as Ms, I mean F*** that, I EARNED that doctorate and I deserve to be addressed properly AND I’m married to a wonderful man – now you’re insulting him too.
The reps at AT&T can do it, c’mon, you can too.
Hi, Dia! I semi-understand why you might want that Dr beside your name though not fully, as I’ve never had to do the work. I mean, I have a Magna Cum Laude BS in Psych but I almost never say that. I got the grades to get there and had to do a dissertation before 5 professors on my own research to get it, but it’s still not the same thing.
I guess my first question would be: are we talking about invitations from people who know about your doctorate? I didn’t know you had one, so that was my first thought.
Sorry this is upsetting you. I think the proper address would be “Mr. and Dr.”. Maybe you could tell folks your preference?
This final straw was from someone who OUGHT to know I have my doctorate. (Plus as a graduate from a medical program I SHOULD have a doctorate as a first professional degree – but that’s a whole other can of worms. So once that’s sorted out (and I’m grandfathered in) I will be Doctor Doctor!) But it was just the culmination of over a decade of such thoughtlessness and I finally snapped.
Wow, you really had to work for your BS – of course, your field is a pretty serious one so that’s all to the good, but still…
Well, it was a Magna Cum Laude BS with Honors, so you had to work for the Honors part. Heh, like you don’t work for the grades that get you that high to begin with. 🙂
If I had continued on with the program just having the Honors would have put me halfway through my Masters, with the credits. Unfortunately, just weeks after that I fell and broke both my ankles! It was over a year before I could even walk semi-normally, so that was pretty much the end of that idea.
I like the idea of Doctor Doctor. 🙂
Dia, an email I just sent you got bounced back to me. The bounce says that your email domain name is on their blocked list, so I guess they’re not sending emails out to your ISP. 🙁
Teri –
Thanks for the heads up, I’ll look into it (dang this has been the month of computer misbehaviour for us all hasn’t it?)