… In Italy, everyone over the age of eighteen is Dottore. Or Professore.

Even their sports journalists insist on it. A Canadian writer talks about European sports reporters:

The Italian press corps is … the most cliquish. The rest of the press is simply ignored. Like the German press gang, the media passes worn by the Italians often make for interesting reading. About half of them appear to be called “Professor” while the Germans are big on being “Doctor.” I’ve always assumed this has to do with the official title a person with a BA or MA is entitled to receive in Italy or Germany. Me, I’ve got some university education, but I wouldn’t even mention that unless there was a point, and I’d be mortified if anybody called me “Professor.” I just writes for the paper.

Professor, Doctor… They love their titles over there, earned and unearned. And they bring this ethos with them wherever they go, as Australia has discovered:

Controversial builder Luigi Casagrande has resigned as director of the Government-owned Queensland Motorways board amid allegations he faked his credentials.

Mr Casagrande, a 2009 Order of Australia recipient, had repeatedly claimed in company annual reports he had a Dott Ing, an advanced engineering degree, from the University of Padua.

The Courier-Mail reported on Monday that the university had no record of the degree and Mr Casagrande declined to clarify the issue.

Despite being on its board since 1995, Mr Casagrande’s credentials were never checked by Queensland Motorways bosses.

… The action also puts Mr Casagrande’s Order of Australia at risk if the honours panel considers his actions dishonest and disreputable.

Almost 20 recipients have lost their awards since 1975. [Twenty? Isn’t that rather a high number? What did they do?]

The Queensland Government entrusted Mr Casagrande with its most important roads projects, including the Gateway Bridge Upgrade. He chaired the committee that oversaw the $2.1 billion project.

… Mr Casagrande’s other credentials as president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Brisbane also are being amended…

———- The Courier-Mail broke the story. ———-

… Graeme Wood. Excerpts:

‘Do people with doctoral degrees have the right to call themselves “Dr.”? If they have the right, does exercising that right make sense, in all situations? If Epstein had wanted to investigate these questions, he could have done so without sprouting new feet like a centipede, finding ways to step in rhetorical dog turds in every paragraph…

What mystifies me is Epstein’s desire to police the use of the title, when he could instead just use it as requested, like a normal person, and contain his disrespect…

In a university environment, insisting on it might be pompous; in an environment where such titles are rare—such as before the name of the soon-to-be first lady of the United States—they make more sense…

If Jill Biden wants to flaunt her Ed.D., who is Joseph Epstein to object? Those letters mean only what they mean. They certainly aren’t more embarrassing than other titles that people use in perpetuity. Ambassadors, I find, tend to call themselves “Ambassador” forever, even if they bought their sole ambassadorship by bundling political donations in Long Island…’

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Wood actually tries to go there, to the arcane competitive arena of title-tossing… I’ve covered the European mania for dottore on this blog…

I’ve never thought much about – or blogged about – my own titlephobia, but for what’s it’s worth:

Les UDs share a refusal to call themselves anything other than first name last name. On our syllabi we are first name last name. On academic correspondence the same. On everything the same. We have available to us, and have certainly seen lots of other people use, Dr. and PhD. For ourselves the idea of using these is embarrassing. We wouldn’t think of doing it. Except in one context.

When we are sending each other, or sending friends, particularly immature and hilarious emails, we sign ourselves with … I don’t know – MA, PhD (Mr UD has two MAs), Doctor Margaret Soltan, MA, PhD, and maybe I’ll add something extra like OBE…

But see we can afford to joke and, as Wood notes, find these things pompous, because we move in an environment where such things are common and we’re a little cynical about them because as with all titles (see Graeme on “ambassador”) some are powerfully earned and meaningful and some are not and the better part of valor is just to avoid them. Plus we were both raised in families full of advanced degrees so we fail to see the shimmer and the glimmer of them. Is this reverse snobbery? I dunno. As I say, this is pretty much the first time I’ve thought about this.

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Actually, to be really really unwisely disclosing, I think for me it’s about as far from reverse or any other kind of snobbery as one can imagine. Like you, I live in my head, and in my head I’m a jerk. In my head I barely made it out of high school and am, au fond, an absurdity. When I read Humbert Humbert’s description of his first wife – “that figure of fun, Mme Humbert” – I pause at figure of fun and feel powerful identification. I just never made it into the adult world, where you take yourself seriously and where there’s a correspondence between the interior of your head and things like titles designating mature accomplishments. My problem, not yours, Dr Biden.