The New York Times use of honorifics must end.

I like the New York Times.

I'm an online subscriber to the New York Times.

Despite Trump's insistence that the New York Times is failing, digital subscriptions are at a record high, the stock price is near a 52 week high, and Trump gave a long and damning interview to the paper just last week.

Thanks to the New York Times, we know more about the Trump administration than Trump would ever want the American people to know. They have broken important story after important story. 

I like the New York Times a lot.

But enough already with the damn honorifics.  

In a quaint vestige of a dying era, the New York Times still uses honorifics like Mr., Ms., and Dr. when writing about people in the news section as a means of demonstrating respect for the people on whom they report.

It's time to stop.

There are a few reasons that I want this to stop, but primarily, I want it to stop because using these honorifics is pretentious. Precious. A sad clinging to a bygone day. Unnecessary tradition that certain readers would surely hate to see go, but I suspect that those who would object the most are also pretentious, precious, and a little sad.

And the Time already more than a little pretentious. The way in which couples strive to land their wedding announcements in the Times, as if it's some kind of a badge of honor, is a little pretentious and sad. These pages are dripping with stories of the wealthiest, most privileged people in the world celebrating their nuptials and wanting anyone who is anyone to know all about it and them. And unless there is an Ivy Leaguer or a ballerina or an investment banker or a Dr. somewhere in the bunch, you ain't getting in. 

There are websites dedicated to making fun of these people, and rightfully so. 

When plumbers marry teachers in New York, the Times doesn't care.   

I hate this. And it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Times pretentiousness.

But my desire for the Times to abandon honorifics goes beyond that. The use of honorifics also creates enormous inconsistencies and matters of questionable judgement. 

Take this piece about Mo'Nique's and Sidney Hicks open marriage. Because Mo'Nique doesn't use a last name, she appears throughout the piece as Mo'Nique whereas Sidney becomes Mr. Hicks.

This inconsistency is annoying and stupid. And it happens all the time. 

The same is done for someone like Meat Loaf, who the Times could refer to as Mr. Loaf but wisely does not. Also Ice Cube. Ice Tea. Snoop Dog. 50 Cent.

You get the idea.  

Then there's the Times' decision to remove the honorific when referring to someone who is considered exceedingly evil, like Osama Bin Laden, but then not removing it for someone like Saddam Hussein. 

The Times has also stop using honorifics on their sports page, because... I guess athletes don't merit the same respect as Mr. Bieber, a entertainer so annoying that he was banned from China this week? Or OJ Simpson? Bill Cosby? Vladimir Putin? 

The Times recently added the gender-neutral pronoun Mx. to their stable of honorifics, which was a good decision if you're going to cling to the needless tradition of honorifics but will surely enrage the kind of Trump supporter who thinks that our cars should be powered by coal, people should only have sex with opposing genitalia, and women shouldn't be exposing their shoulders in the US Senate. 

Actually, I guess that's kind of a good thing,

Still, rather than adding an honorific to obscure sex and gender, how about just removing them altogether.

Mr. only serves to indicate that the person in question has a penis.

Miss, Ms., and Mrs. only serve to indicate the marital status and presence of a vagina. 

Stupid. 

The only other thing I like about their rules of honorifics related to the use of the title Dr.

"Dr. should be used in all references for physicians, dentists and veterinarians whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing."

In the New York Times, a Dr. is a doctor. 

A person who has earned a PhD can also request that the Dr. honorific is used, but only if it's related to their current occupation.

I just like the idea that they have to ask. 

"Um... excuse me. I earned a PhD. in comparative literature with a focus on eighteenth century Lithuanian feminist male writers. Could you please refer to me as Dr. Jones?"

I like the groveling that's required to get that precious honorific in the pages of the paper.  

My problem with honorifics

I'm not a fan of titles, which is a nice way of saying that I really, really hate titles. 

Let me explain. 

I have several good friends who have earned doctorates in a variety of fields.

Some are actual medical doctors. If a person is having a heart attack on an airplane and the flight attendant asks if there is a doctor onboard, these are the people who can rightfully stand up and offer assistance.

Others possess doctorates in various non-medical fields: education, public policy, sociology, literature, mathematics, and more. These are folks who remain in their seats during the onboard medical emergency, keenly aware of the limitations of their doctoral title. 

Some of these people make use of their doctoral title in professional settings.
Some use it in personal settings, too.
Others do not.
It was years before I learned that some of my friends had earned a doctorate.  

Here is my problem with titles like these:

A title like "doctor" is a signal of exceptionally hard work and great academic accomplishment, but it also quite often coincides with the opportunity to engage in this level of academic pursuit. These are intelligent, dedicated individuals who in most cases benefited from parents who supported them at some point during the pursuit of higher education. These are people who were sent to college by their mothers and fathers. Dropped off at the dorms with futons and small refrigerators and desk lamps. These were folks who had some or all of their college education paid for by their parents.

There is a lot of research on the socioeconomics of doctoral candidates that support this assertion. 

Doctoral candidates tend not to be people who were forced to work 40 or 60 hours a week while attending college just to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads. While their accomplishments are no less impressive, they have almost always been earned alongside a certain degree of unwavering familial support.

But what about the people who are perfectly capable of earning a doctorate or other title-conferring degree but did not have the opportunity to do so because of life circumstances?

Take my friend, Amy, for example. Amy is a woman who was raised by a drug addicted mother and an abusive father. She taught herself to drive at the age of 12 so she could bring her mother to the grocery store and force her to buy food for herself and her sisters. Her childhood was filled with uncommon struggle and an unacceptable level of neglect and abuse. 

When Amy was young, she was shot in the head and survived. She earned a large settlement as a result of the shooting that she intended to use to pay for college only to discover that her mother had spent the money on drugs. Seeing no other way of paying for college, Amy transformed herself into an outstanding soccer player and earned an athletic scholarship to Sacred Heart University. She graduated with honors and began a teaching career by day and working at night as a waitress and bartender in order to pay off student loans and eventually fund and earn a Master's degree.

Working two jobs while attending college is an incredibly difficult thing. I know. I did it myself.  

Amy taught alongside me for several years before rising to the level of vice principal. She is currently home with her first child and expecting her second, but someday in the not-to-distant future, she will be the principal of a school. She has no doctoral degree and may never have the opportunity to earn one given her life circumstances, but is Amy any less deserving of such a title?

I don't think so.

In fact, she might be more deserving of a title than anyone I know. 

Honorifics and titles rarely tell us much about a person. They are capital and lowercase letters and bits punctuation that we place ahead of a name as a moniker of some significance, but truthfully, they mean little when it comes to taking the measure of a person.   

I know some remarkable people in possession of doctoral degrees. I know some wholly unimpressive people in possession of them well.   

And while their title may indicate a certain level of education, they are also often indicators of stable childhood homes, loving parents, a certain level of socioeconomic upbringing, a absence of debilitating injuries or diseases, and much more.

This is why I hate titles. People mistake them as meaning something. Worse, they leave people like Amy without a much deserved title.  

This TED Talk by Regina Hartley speaks to this issues well. I highly recommend it.