Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • December 2, 2011 9:33 PM

@ Bruce,

You’ve got yourself another hat, not sure if I like it as much as the one you wear when playing your drum 8)

Seriously though concratulations, yes it is an “Honorary award” but to get that for a significant contribution to a body of scientific knowledge is often way harder to get than an ordinary award.

I know in the US they are a bit “sniffy” about honour awards, but when you are in the UK the old style would be to call you “The Honorable Doctor Bruce Schneier” as a formal introduction, but the “newer universities” are changing that so check with the Westminster awards office.

And yes it does have it’s uses over and above being an honour, but for the many ups there are also one or two downs, as someone I know with an Honorary Doctorate found out you will get people come upto you at social functions thinking you are “the other kind of doctor” and ask you for advice about “their little problem”…

One up is you may find it easier to get personal membership of certain institutions with libraries “behind membership-walls” to carry on your research in the direction of your new book. Some will now even give you membership for free.

Ask Ross J Anderson what institutions it will let you into, the ones worth joining though should let you in on “standing” anyway from all your published work.

Oh and in future times when giving evidence before various commities etc the Honorary (because it’s for “standing”) often actually adds to the weight of your testament, such is the odd way of things.

Clive Robinson • December 5, 2011 9:15 AM

@ Peter,

It’s not “the honorable” but “the honorable Dr.”, that is it is used as an honorific or title of respect.

If I remember correctly the “honorable” part in “Right honorable” and “Most Honorable” originaly refered to an award being bestowed upon a person by a servant of a monarch who has a Royal Warrant or acts under a Royal Charter to do so. And it means effectivly it is an award tracble directly to the monarch.

Thus in the case of a member of parliment “the right honorable MP for Noddinghoff Mr John Snooze”. Informaly if the award comes before the name it is traceable to the monarch after the name clarifing titles and positional awards then by education or affiliation to some institution of proffessional standing it can all get quite messy as in,

“Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent, Knight Comander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath and Commander of the British Empire, Vice Admiral of the United Kingdom, Admiral in Her Majesty’s Fleet and Commander in Chief of Her Majesty’s Ships and Vessels employed and to be employed in the Fleet”.

The Sir (knighthood) is qualified by “Knight Commander of the order of the bath” (KCB) which was originaly a military award and “Commander of the British Empire (CBE) which is usually attached to a senior position within the British Government which in this case is “vice admiral” followed by the responsability of the post…

The title of “The Honorable” is very confusing, and is used in a number of places in different ways. Usually it “goes with the post” in Government circles and can be qualified by “right” and “most”. However Universities with Charters are allowed to use it when the give an “Honorary degree” where the purpose is recognition of equivalent standing to the accademic equivalent. That is where it is held self evident or upon submission that the persons contribution to the field of endeavor is equivalent or greater than would be expected of some one who has obtained the qualification by the more normal accademic route. Generaly it is thus the equivalent in every way to that of the accademic award.

Thus the verbal honorific “The Honarable Doctor” is sometimes used to make clear that it is awarded on merit of standing not for some other reason (and yes it is confusing when the person is a Dr. by qualification and holds a government position that carrries “The Honarable”.

However when it comes to writing it down it becomes very messy and the rules vary very wildly from place to place and normaly you would recieve guidence from the institutions awards and honours office.

Finally just to make life even more interesting with regards “Honorable” it can be used as a title or honorific in other ways. Firstly the Offspring of various peers are entitled to use the “title” verbaly whilst others can use lord or lady. But also private organisations without a charter can and do in some places issue the title of “The Honorable” to either founding members for life or to those who currently hold position in office of a council (equivalent to a director etc). Which then brings up the issue of what do you call the council member when they nolonger hold office… Some get nothing others get “The distinguished member” and all sorts of other titles as so often is the case the rules are very fluid and the mileage may vary…

The only reason I ever got vaguly interested in this mess was because on a number of occasions I have been refered to as Esquire (ie Esq. after my name) as this is both a title and an honorific, and at one point was the holder of a formal transferable title (I bought it at auction as an investment and shortly there after sold it at a reasonable profit).

Oh and just to show how messy things can get there are certain groups where they do things in an odd way, take surgeons, they use the title “Mister” to distinguish themselves from meer medical men who call themselves “Doctor”. All of which was once OK but what do you call a surgeon who is actually a woman? I’m still trying to find out but I’ve been told “it’s still Mister”.