Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

01 Mar 2002, 7:20 a.m.

It's not often that I wonder, "How should I address…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

It's not often that I wonder, "How should I address this professor? Would he rather I use his title, his title and last name, or his first name?" and then read a book by him (in this case, John McWhorter's Losing the Race) that answers the question (in this case, "John").