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shminux comments on Muehlhauser-Wang Dialogue - Less Wrong
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The situation in the US and Canada is quite relaxed, actually, nothing like in, say, Germany. Dr is a perfectly valid form of address to any faculty member.
Well, at least in my experience the Professors who don't actually have doctorates tend not to appreciate having to correct you on that point. But yeah.
When I received the proofs for my IJMC papers, the e-mail addressed me as "dear professor Sotala" (for those who aren't aware, I don't even have a Master's degree, let alone a professorship). When I mentioned this on Facebook, some people mentioned that there are countries where it's a huge faux pas to address a professor as anything else than a professor. So since "professor" is the highest form of address, everyone tends to get called that in academic communication, just to make sure that nobody'll be offended - even if the sender is 95% sure that the other isn't actually a professor.
I really would not have guessed that it would be considered polite or appropriate to call someone a "higher" form of address than they're entitled to, especially when it actually refers to something concrete. Learn something new every day, I guess.