[Godel_unicode]

Do you similarly never refer to people as Doctor, Reverend, Minister, or Coach so-and-so? It's part of his name. If Sir Tim didn't want to be knighted, I feel confident he wouldn't have been. You'll note that his wikipedia page calls him Sir Tim, and I feel confident he could change it if he so chose.

You are clearly free to call him whatever you want, but I would advise you to be honest enough to realize that you're projecting your feelings about royalists onto him, and not calling him what he has chosen to be called.

[pbhjpbhj]

In practice you're right, i call people what they indicate their designation to be. Where I work we've had a person call themselves something like "Grand Wizard-Admiral of the Terran System" - some people like a pompous name.

If a person is an MD, professor, and such then that's totally acceptable. If the designation is "the Queen says you have to call me sir now" I don't really see what business it is of the Queen's or that it's more respectful to recognise a person because "the Queen smiled at them" than recognising their actual work/effort as fellowship of a learned society does.

It's an anachronous system of nepotism; bleurgh. What's not to like./s