Re: CHAT: Mr. President (was: Old Norse)

>From: John Cowan <jcowan@...>
>Padraic Brown wrote:
>
> > Slick Willie can rightly be addressed as "your excellency" [...]
>
>Absolutely not!  (Unless you mean in his former role as Governor of
>Arkansas, where he may or may not have held that title -- see below.)
I don't know.  But in Texas, some say 'gubner' or something like that.
(Many more use the term 'gubernatorial'.)

>George Washington replied by proposing titles for the Vice President that
>included
>"His Superfluous Excellency" and "His Rotundity" (John Adams was a fatty).
>Eventually the whole topic collapsed and we settled on simplicity.
In Techia, titles for politicians, be they elected, appointed or inherited,
are used as much as sarcasm as they are as honor.  Something like "His
Superfluous Excellency" or "His Royal Fat Ass" fulfills the earlier.

By the way, one US President weighed over 300 lbs -- William Howard Taft.
(Could I be the second...)

>Governors are still "Your Excellency", at least in some states, because we
>inherited them from Great Britain.
They don't call bishops "Your Grace" in the US as far as I know.  But
cardinals are addressed as "Your Eminence", and of course the Pope as "Your
Holiness" when he pays a visit to the US of A.  If the Patriarch of Istanbul
ever came over, we'd call him "His Beatitude".

Techians call the King what translates to "By God['s Grace] The King of
Kings of the State of Techia", or briefly "The King Bygawd".  Priests and
bishops -- including the [Ethio-Techian Orthodox] Patriarch (or Pope) of
Tech City -- are called "Abba", the Syriac word for "Father" or "Dad".

Daniel A. Wier  ¶¦¬þ
Lufkin, Texas USA
http://communities.msn.com/DannysDoubleWideontheWeb

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