I hear ya...
One of my friends signed on while she was writing up. Her thesis, which spawned a couple of papers and made it into the national press on a couple of occasions was to do with how you can correlate incidence of respiritory illness with pollution levels - she basically took air samples every day for three years, measured the pollution then compared days with spikes with hospital admission records for breathing problems and found a link. Pretty useful work, I'd say (much more so than mine).

When she signed on the woman asked her what she had done for her PhD. When she explained, the woman said to her "and what use is that in the real world?" Erm, it tells you directly that pollution is bad for old people, children and people with a predisposition to asthma? I'd say it was pretty useful in the real world?

Good job I never tried to sign on - I dread to think how I would explained three years of studying the biophysics of cell membranes.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 12:19, 2 replies)

Hmmm...
I simply refused to sign on after that. My family had - in a well-meaning way - loaned me some money to tide me over for a bit, but that put me over the means test; and, never having earned anything, I had no contributions-basis from which I could claim. Signing on would've meant missing Start the Week every fortnight for no good reason.

Luckily, I got a couple of stop-gap short-term things - paid-by-the-hour teaching and so on reasonably soon, and so wasn't too enormously badly hit. But, really. The lack of imagination...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 12:25, closed)

I should add...
... that by the third year, the only reason why I was completing the PhD was so that I could use "Dr" on airline bookings and hopefully get upgraded.


Apparently, it's very non-U for you to call yourself "Dr" if all you have is a PhD - it's only honorary doctorates such as those that medics have, or higher doctoral degrees like DLitts that confer that ability. I have never known anyone abide by that convention...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 12:28, closed)

what does
non-U mean? Is it something middle class and pretentious?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 12:42, closed)

Very much so...
"U and non-U English usage, with U standing for upper class, and non-U representing the aspiring middle classes, were part of the terminology of popular discourse of social dialects (sociolects) in 1950s Britain and the northeast United States."
( Cawl, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 12:59, closed)

It's a disinction dreamed up...
... I think, by one of the Mitfords.

Essentially, it boils down to rules of propriety that are very highly codified. It's not to be taken all that seriously, I suspect.

A couple of years ago there was a flurry of indignant letters to The Times complaining that Paxman had called Mo Mowlam Dr Mowlam. Apparently that was a tremendous breach of etiquette, because she was merely a PhD.

(Doctors have honorary doctorates, so, by that rule, can be called "Dr". The same applies to higher doctorates. Arcane, huh?)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 13:15, closed)

It does seem a bit silly
As etiquette goes, anyway.

I suppose all it really does is prevent academics pulling out the obvious joke card when somebody collapses in a pub/cinema/theatre/etc., and the staff shout "Is there a doctor in the house?"

"Why yes, but I don't see how my three years of research into Nanoscale Techniques in Applied Underwater Basket Weaving is going to be of much help to this stroke victim."

Other than that, I might as well give up now if I won't get to call myself "Dr Crow" in two years' time...
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 13:56, closed)

I think...
... it has more to do with looking down on middle-class arrivistes for not being quite "one of us". A title for which you have to work indicates that you're something of an upstart.

Gawd bless the Mitfords. Utterly barking mad, the lot of them.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 14:12, closed)

Well, quite
Given that even Esther Rantzen has been given an honorary degree, I think I'd have more faith in a Dr who had actually worked for the title rather than an 'honorary*' one.


*_{This also holds for most of the medics I've met, in fact, as they seem to be rugger buggers who are just off their tits on gin most of the time. Apart from the medics I used to live with. They were nice, and one of them did patch up the hole in my leg. They'll make good medical doctors.}
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 16:33, closed)

It's worth worrying about that on an aircraft
that's about it, since they have seat manifests and may come and have "a quiet word in your ear" if someone is taken ill, and explaining can be tricky.

then again, all else being equal, you stand a tiny chance of an upgrade, so fuck it. Take the risk.

titles are on passports now anyway (well, it's on mine for some reason) so you often don't have the choice.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 15:45, closed)

I'll hope for the upgrade.
And if they ask me to help with a patient, I'll inform them that regrettably I can only help if it's a problem with the aircraft.
(Ltro, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 18:11, closed)

It's not taken seriously at all
at least, not by any academic I know, regardless of social class or standing.

Were there really letters to The Times? what a bunch of wankers. I generally use my title for anything official, fuck it, I earned it.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 15:42, closed)