Using Mr while introducing self.

[kumar17]

Is it appropriate to use 'Mr' in front of our name while introducing ourself? I am referring to a male.

I never use that but I saw an educated native speaker introducing himself in a movie as such.

 

[jutfrank]

It usually isn't appropriate, no, but there are cases when it might be. One such case might be when you mean to make a point that you wish to be addressed that way. A good example is a teacher introducing himself to a new class.

 

[Rover_KE]

... or a surgeon in the UK, reminding his patients that he shouldn't be addressed as Doctor.

 

[Tdol]

If you don't have a reason to do it, I would recommend not doing it. I have heard people do it and it sounds pompous.

 

[TheParser]

... or a surgeon in the UK, reminding his patients that he shouldn't be addressed as Doctor.

NOT A TEACHER

Here in the States, we address even a dentist as "Doctor."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It sounds old-fashioned. What was the movie? When was it set?

(It always helps to tell us the sources of quotes.)

 

[kumar17]

It sounds old-fashioned. What was the movie? When was it set?

(It always helps to tell us the sources of quotes.)

It is from a movie called The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The warden introduces himself as 'I am Mr Norton, the warden' to new prisoners. It is a period movie. The scene is supposed to be in 1940s.

[h=3]
[/h]

 

[Rover_KE]

He is making sure the prisoners know how he wants to be addressed.

***

Please tell us the full source in post #1 in future.

 

[Tdol]

NOT A TEACHER

Here in the States, we address even a dentist as "Doctor."

It's a kind of reverse snobbery- these doctors are too important to be called a mere doctor.

 

[probus]

Many people in North America assume, quite wrongly, that all doctors are surgeons. In fact, medical students get only a very brief exposure to surgery during their four years of medical school. Surgery is taught and learned by apprenticeship after people have received their MD degree.

 

[probus]

NOT A TEACHER

Here in the States, we address even a dentist as "Doctor."

Not only in the States. Long ago when I was newly married my mother-in-law was a still-attractive fifty-year-old in India. She'd been a widow for many years, and one day I said "I hear Dr So-and-so likes you." She replied "Feh! He's only a dentist." :-D

 

[Tdol]

The dentists I went to in the UK weren't called doctor. The one I go to in Japan is.

 

[GoesStation]

In the United States, dentists have MDs.

 

[5jj]

In the UK, medical practitioners of any discipline can only call themselves Doctor if they have a doctorate, but they don't object if their patients mistakenly or flatteringly use that designation – in fact they lap it up.

Few people who practise medicine in the UK have a doctorate, but it is perfectly normal to use the title Doctor. It is not a mistake. All those I have ever known refer to themselves in this way.

The only thing some people object to is when medical practitioners use the title in fields outside medicine. David Owen, a British politician, struck some of us as being rather pretentious when he insisted on being addressed as Dr rather than Mr in the world of politics.

 

[probus]

Things have evolved here in Canada. In my youth dentists were not addressed as Dr but nowadays they are. I suspect it began when they gained the ability to prescribe opiates and antibiotics.

 

[jutfrank]

... struck some of us as being rather pretentious when he insisted on being addressed as Dr rather than Mr in the world of politics.

I had a teacher at my old bog-standard comprehensive who insisted on being called Dr Mortimer. I think he must have had a postgrad in history. It always seemed to me that he was trying to distinguish himself from the other teachers. He wasn't a particularly good teacher.

 

[GoesStation]

My high school was blessed to have a math teacher called Dr. Doctor. I don't think anyone begrudged him the title.